2 More Things I Didn't Know
Fascism as Educational Policy
The No Child Left Behind Act requires schools to report the names, addresses, and phone numbers of secondary school students to recruiters, but the law also specifies that parents or guardians may write a letter to the school asking that their children’s names not be released.
What does it help my child’s education to have their information in the hands of the Pentagon and military recruiters? I used to joke about “No Child Left Behind” as a fascist nicety couching recruitment for the war in
http://www.vermontguardian.com/national/012006/Pentagon.shtml
Drug Dealing Run Amok
For a new drug to be approved by the FDA, it only requires that the drug be tested against a placebo, but not against existing drugs already on the market. It is likely that many new pharmaceuticals do not perform nearly as well as generic ones already on the market at much lower prices.
One example is Nexium or ‘the purple pill”, a highly marketed prescription. Prilosec, a generic over the counter drug costing one-eighth the price, has almost the exact chemical composition as Nexium. The patent on Prilosec ran out, so the drug company alters the formula ever so slightly in order to obtain a patent and the subsequent profits.
posted by Shlomo Leib Aronovitz @ 12:31 PM
7 Comments
7 Comments:
It is likely that many new pharmaceuticals do not perform nearly as well as generic ones already on the market at much lower prices.
I'm sure this is true, but you also have to keep in mind that different people react differently to different drugs, so there is some inherent value in having different medications for the same problem.
If Nexium gives you an allergic reaction, or you've ever had an allergic reaction to Prilosec, you will not be able to use this medication. (They are identical. The name was changed to earn a new patent. That’s it.)
http://www.healthsquare.com/newrx/nex1577.htm
http://www.mercola.com/2002/dec/18/nexium.htm
Well that's messed up.
I'm a skeptic conservative minority in a liberal-dominated skeptic world. What I mean to say is that the consumer also has some responsibility for understanding his or her own health care.
The Jewish Freak,
From my understanding of it, both the FDA and the USPO are supposed to be ultimately protecting the consumer/citizen, not the big corporations. Obviously, people need to be responsible, but that doesn't mean the government should actively help corporations fleece the ignorant (by granting FDA approval or patent approval to drugs which are no better than existent drugs.)
JF,
I do agree with you that consumers need to educate themselves, and at the same time, JA is also right. Part of that education is not just about the drugs effects, but how that drug is researched, produced, and marketed.
The FDA and associated agencies were created to protect and educate the consumers by forcing drug companies to do their own homework and provide honest information to physicians and the general public. Otherwise, we'd never know it's snake oil until it was too late.
The consumer (physicians are comsumers, too) is ultimately going to believe what the drug maker tells him because it has that FDA seal of approval. If that becomes corrupted, as it obviously has long ago, then what do we do? Do we all have to become pharmocologists?
We are fortunate today to have the internet available to us, and searching for information can be done right from home's convenient setting. That does ease the public's ability to gain knowledge and take greater part in making health care decisions. I do, however, not believe that the consumer's responsibility to know should ever rise to the level of culpability should the drug produce dangerous side effects or not perform as claimed.
Kol Tuv
SLA: I've got nothing to add to this discussion, except the new thumbnail photo is a definite improvement.
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