For STAT, Ed Silverman writes, “the incoming Trump administration may seek to undo a decades-old standard of evaluating drugs for effectiveness — to the detriment of every American who takes a prescription medicine.”
-
No he’s considering a conservative, who knows that the main purpose of drug therapy is to make pharmaceutical companies healthier, while your health is inconsequential in the real scheme of things. To the observed mentality, this should be the true way this should be done- you don’t want anyone growing old enough to get and stay on Social Security, costing Uncle Sam precious megabucks that could be spent usefully on weapons’ R&D, instead.
-
“Who knows” (& supports the idea) “that the main purpose of drug therapy is to make pharmaceutical companies” wealthier, “while your health is inconsequential in the real scheme of things.”
I don’t think this potential windfall for capitalist bosses like Trump is going to mean better health for US citizens as a whole, although it will potentially mean more wealth for investors. All in all, you’re talking another very dangerous and scary appointment by the former star of The Apprentice in his present spin-off, The Presidency.
-
-
On the other hand, might it encourage greater wariness by both prescribing doctors and the general public when it comes to “medication”?
Drug approval in the US would become meaningless and prescribers and users alike would have to turn to other countries’ assessment of drugs, effectively making all of the apparently already-dubious FDA processes less influential.
Would this really matter? Might it be a good thing, in fact, if the FDA, which appears to be run largely by and for the drug companies, were to finally drop the charade of being the protector of public health and safety?
The requirements for trials are still going to be there in other countries, and I see this as potentially taking away the influence Pharma can use internationally by saying the US FDA has approved this drug, as I doubt many would follow the US down this track.
It just really makes drug/device approval in the US even more meaningless than it already is.
-
I think that assumes that people are going to consider what other countries are doing and that doctors are actually going to have the time to investigate what other countries are doing and how and where drugs are approved, etc. We know the number one consideration of doctors in prescribing any medication is the last drug company to turn up on their door step, what pen they are writing in, etc, which is why the drug companies leave them all of this stuff. Doctors do not at present consider what is best, they do what the drug companies told them. Having to keep up to date with medical research is already something they struggle with, are they really going to have the time to investigate what other countries are doing.
Equally what does the average person do, quite simply they trust the doctor, they do not go out and do research and question this stuff, they assume doctors know best. How do you pull it all apart. While I would be quite happy to get rid of psychiatric drugs, does not mean they never have a role in other real diseases and conditions, equally does not mean they are not overused in those things as well.
Also have to question what the word safe means. I do believe that chemotherapy for cancer has been overused at times, and I hate it being used when the person is in the final stages of terminal cancer, when it has no role and quality of life should be the issue. Equally I have had family members go into remission as a result of it, does not mean it was pleasant while undergoing the treatment. Would I consider such side effects appropriate for anything else, no. Although psychiatry does not consider any side effects as bad as they consider the underlying fictional disease a thousand times worse.
Given the level of off label prescribing that already goes on, I think that really says it all. They already know it is not approved for use, but are happy to prescribe it anyway. I would also ad, that off label prescribing is more and more common throughout the world. I am not from the US, I live in a country with a social health system. The social health system will not fund off label prescriptions, yet the outrage here is that they are not covered, and I know that is happening in most other countries with social health care as well. People believe that off label prescribing is ok, because if it is used for one thing, must be ok for other things as well.
-
