The long I look at the current dynamic between government and industry, the more I see that we are just repeating the early 1900s.
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Plansix
United States60190 Posts
The long I look at the current dynamic between government and industry, the more I see that we are just repeating the early 1900s. | ||
Ghostcom
Denmark4782 Posts
Tramadol was marketed as less addictive (which imo borders on the criminal). The addictiveness of opioids has been well-known since ancient Summeria (spelling in English?) Opioids for treatment of non-malignant pain is a last resort and has always been considered so (the arguments for this came from doctors who argued that treatment of pain skills be a human right - see the IASP charter). The need for dose-escalation due to development of tolerance is by no means a surprise and the arguments for opioids as a last resort were put forth with this in mind. What makes the opioid crisis especially tragic is that we (doctors) should have to some degree seen it coming. The data wasn't being hidden as in the case of Merck and the Vioxx-scandal. However, knowledge was rather limited and instead of making and adhering to strict prescription rules (which have now been implemented in most western countries) opioid prescription was rather like the wild west. EDIT: Don't get me wrong. The pharmaceutical companies are by no means without blame (their marketing has been straight up criminal), but it is too easy to simply put the blame on big bad pharma. Sadly, us doctors have to shoulder some of the blame too. | ||
TheYango
United States47024 Posts
On January 31 2019 23:32 Stratos_speAr wrote: That reaction is absurdly rare (there is already a warning against anyone his age getting the vaccine). The Yellow Fever vaccine is also not a regularly-mandated vaccine. That the vaccine has incredibly serious adverse effects is known, and why it's is only recommended for people travelling to high-risk countries (where the risk of contracting Yellow Fever is high enough to outweigh the risks of a vaccine adverse effect). If anything, the relatively conservative approach to how the Yellow Fever vaccine is administered is an example of how good we are at *not* giving out unnecessary vaccines willy-nilly. Trying to us it as an anti-vaxx argument is just willful ignorance. | ||
JimmiC
Canada22817 Posts
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Dangermousecatdog
United Kingdom7084 Posts
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farvacola
United States18821 Posts
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TheYango
United States47024 Posts
On February 01 2019 00:52 JimmiC wrote: But it is the impression that people get. That science can be bought or manipulated. Scientists also tend to do things like give standard deviations and point out the possible flaws in their own research. These "truth" tellers always do so with 100% confidence. That can sway a lot of people who don't understand that degree's of confidence actually make things more reliable. There's a fallacious "like associates with like" belief that because pharmaceutical companies, hospitals, and large medical organizations all happen to be big and hierarchical, they must all be buddy-buddy with one another, and that the failures of US healthcare and medical science starts from the top. In fact, it's quite the opposite. Major urban medical centers and medical regulatory organizations have been the most vigilant in addressing issues of over-prescription. Physicians at major urban medical centers undergo an insane level of oversight and peer review, and its very difficult for a physician or organization under that level of surveillance to adhere to poor practice standards and still keep their license. The opioid crisis is, and has been a problem that originated in rural areas. Areas that are not well-covered by these organizations, and are largely under the purview of individual providers. Individual providers who receive less oversight, have less requirements to stay up to date with current practice standards, and are more vulnerable to being bought out by pharmaceutical companies. | ||
Plansix
United States60190 Posts
On February 01 2019 00:57 farvacola wrote: The litigation involving big pharma and what it knew as time went on is still ongoing, so who knew what when is still an unsettled issue. However, based on what I’ve seen come out of the Massachusetts and Ohio lawsuits, there was a lot of knowledge on the part of big pharma, potentially enough to render them liable for harms caused. This is looking especially true with regards to Perdue; there is reason to believe that they understood the addictive problems of its opioids so well that they deliberately situated themselves to profit off of addiction treatments. The MA case looks like a fun one to watch given the facts involved. I expected it to be some dull story about money under the table or just lying to doctors. But nope, they went full Wolf of Wall Street levels of stupid in pushing these drugs. Lazarus said one defendant, Sunrise Lee – a sales executive and ex-stripper – gave a lap dance to an Illinois doctor to persuade him to prescribe Subsys to patients it wasn’t suitable for. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jan/31/john-kapoor-insys-trial-opioids-crisis | ||
JimmiC
Canada22817 Posts
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Plansix
United States60190 Posts
On February 01 2019 01:20 JimmiC wrote: I agree with you, and you clearly have a lot of insight and knowledge on the issue. Now how do you disseminate that information out to the public in a way that is easily digestible. We often try to do so and appeal to peoples sense of logic and fact. But we are losing the battle because the disinformation side has learned that appealing to peoples emotions is more powerful and easier to do. It is harder than just sending that information out to the public. You need a state government that has a culture of oversight and using a heavy hand. MA is a nice state to live in because our AG and government is more than happy to kick the crap out of any company that misbehaves. We also have aggressive consumer protection laws that businesses complain about the time because there is a pretty wide definition of “deceptive business practices”. Most rural states don’t have that because they keep electing people running on anti-government platforms. | ||
Plansix
United States60190 Posts
My favorite part is that they paid a staggering amount of money for recruitment of potential students to deport like 600 people who just wanted legal status. Of course, if these folks were citizens, I'm sure this might fall under entrapment. But that doesn't matter for illegal immigrants. A quarter million for 600 people. From early 2017 to January 2019, the men "assisted at least 600 other foreign citizens to illegally remain, re-enter and work in the United States, and actively recruited them to enroll" at Farmington in a "pay to stay" scheme, the indictment states. Many of the alleged recruiters visited the university's office to collect payments for their efforts, according to the indictment, which says they were paid sums ranging from $5,000 to $20,000 on each trip. "Because of their recruiting success, this alliance collectively profited in excess of quarter of a million dollars," the indictment states. Source Edit: Also my boy Ed dropping the Green New Deal with AOC is good news. She is making god tier choices with who to ally with in Congress. Ed sole purpose in the Senate is to be a good Senator. Source | ||
JimmiC
Canada22817 Posts
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Plansix
United States60190 Posts
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Liquid`Drone
Norway28621 Posts
On January 31 2019 23:17 Excludos wrote: With laws? Isn't that what we've been arguing about the last few pages? Whether vaccination (an offspring of science) should be mandatory or not? But the umbrella of science is pretty wide.. I get what you mean specifically for vaccination, but even then I wonder what the application might look like.. If you get a die hard anti-vaccination family where they genuinely think that you are deliberately poisoning their child, how does it play out when you 'enforce the mandatory vaccine' on their kid? I mean, in Norway, vaccines are given to kids several times before they're 15 months old, and then again / different vaccines at 7, 11, 12, 15. A 7 or 11-12 year old living in a family where vaccines are really terrible might be both indoctrinated and aware enough for the experience of being forced to take them and their parents trying to resist it pretty traumatic.. But that's just looking at vaccines. What about climate change? I get taxing stuff that pollutes and fining excessive pollution, but I don't see how we can 'collect' climate change deniers to stand under our umbrella. It sounded like you not only want to enforce laws that stem from scientific reasoning, but like you want to make everyone believe in science. And that's not something laws can do. Strong focus on public education is certainly good. But this stuff takes time, and you have to weight it against other important societal principles too. (I do not at all think children are the property of their parents, but some individual flair must be allowed while raising your child; not all elements of what a parent teaches his or her child can be regulated.) Maintaining democratic principles are also important - although this does, of course, necessitate a strong focus on public education so you ensure the citizens are capable of making informed decisions - but either way it means that you can't necessarily do 'scientific' stuff that goes against the desire of the public without going into conflict with other treasured principles.. I also don't know if I think everything in life can or should be appreciated through a scientific lens - at least not if you only deal with harder sciences. (And while I personally think the humanities are immensely valuable, not everyone would agree that they are necessarily sciences). Which brings up another point; where do you draw the line for what is scientific, and how high does the consensus among scientists have to be before it's a 'legally established truth'? Just to be clear; Science is great. But it's not simple. And people aren't either. It's not that I disagree that science should (largely) govern political actions and attitudes (where it can), but we're not at the point of scientific understanding where science (especially science that has political applicability) is detached from other human experiences, including ideological leaning. (You can argue that science in its purest form is, but 'vaccines' is not.) | ||
Mohdoo
United States15509 Posts
On February 01 2019 03:49 Liquid`Drone wrote: Just to be clear; Science is great. But it's not simple. And people aren't either. It's not that I disagree that science should (largely) govern political actions and attitudes (where it can), but we're not at the point of scientific understanding where science (especially science that has political applicability) is detached from other human experiences, including ideological leaning. (You can argue that science in its purest form is, but 'vaccines' is not.) The only "yeah but" I would add to this is that we should keep in mind science is more of a method than a school of thought. Science is basically just us using methodolgy and statistics to try to make our own information more accurate. In my ways, by definition, science is the best we have. In times where the science is not 100% certain, it is significantly more certain than anything else. Science will always represent the most complete knowledge for a given topic. So even when we are uncertain in science, it remains the most "complete" of guidance to make a decision. | ||
farvacola
United States18821 Posts
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Plansix
United States60190 Posts
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Mohdoo
United States15509 Posts
On February 01 2019 04:40 farvacola wrote: There are plenty of topics where science not only does not “represent the most complete knowledge,” it’s largely irrelevant. In fact, vaccine public policy is one such topic. Science cannot solve the problems of its own implementation in much the same way that science cannot solve the problem of skepticism aimed at government mandated vaccinations. Solving those problems requires something rather different. Hard science answers "does widespread vaccination improve human health?" Social science answers "how do we convince people it is worthwhile to be vaccinated" Or at least that's how I see it. I classify political science and sociology to be social sciences. | ||
Plansix
United States60190 Posts
On February 01 2019 05:31 Mohdoo wrote: Hard science answers "does widespread vaccination improve human health?" Social science answers "how do we convince people it is worthwhile to be vaccinated" Or at least that's how I see it. I classify political science and sociology to be social sciences. Yes. Only one of those displines is intrested in solving the problem of people not trusting vaccines. Also, have you examined the idea that something must have science at the end of it for it to be meritorious to public policy? Political science is sort of a thing. But there is no legal science. Urban planning isn’t a “science” by most traditional metrics. The study of languages is not a science either. | ||
Dangermousecatdog
United Kingdom7084 Posts
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