Government Regulation Of Prescription Drugs

[scottkursk]

(Mods note: This was split from a thread on "Flu Pandemic")

Death isn't really a small inconvenience for anyone. "Thinking ahead" will not protect you from drug resistant bacteria, since they are everywhere. There are no precautions, that's scottkursk's point.

Bingo! Thanks Monica.

This brings up the interesting issue of something that is going on in the pollution thread, which is: To what extent can your freedom be a potential initiation of force on others?

Aaaanyway, this thread is losing its original intention, so I'll move ahead in that vein of being tangential.

Actually, you are right that it's tangential but still a valid idea for a new thread. That is one thing that has always worried me about a truly free market treatment of drugs. I do support legalization of things like marijuana though the drugs that scare the hell out of me isn't heroin or meth, but thing like Cipro. That is the interesting moral question: we agree that all people are responsible for their own actions so as long as they don't cause harm on others. So if someone wants to smoke pot, drink bourboun, etc, it's their own life to destroy. However, the use of certain perscription drugs like Cipro will most definately lead to the evolution of superbugs (they already are getting that way in come cases like flu and HIV.) Would deregualtion of perscription drugs like these constitute the force since their misuse would end up causing harm? Sounds like an interesting split topic

Interesting historical notes on the importance of fungi (my favorite organisms and subject of study):

The first antibiotic was discovered during WWII practically by chance by a very perceptive man named Alexander Fleming, who noticed the receding growth of bacterial culture around a contaminant fungus, Penicillium. Thus, penicillin was "born." Thousands of lives were saved on the allied front. Since then, most of our antibiotics have been harvested from fungi or are directly modified from fungal metabolites. They work because fungi are closer relatives to humans than bacteria, and the drugs don't harm our own cells. (Unfortunately, this makes fungal diseases very hard to combat because the same drugs which would be active against the fungi are also active against human tissues.)

Interesting. I remember hearing how Ronald Reagan's father or grandfather was deathly ill and nothing could be done about it. The doctor said he had nothing to loose so he said try an old remedy of a soup made from moldy bread. It worked. Crude and dangerous as all getout but it somehow worked thanks to the unkown benefits of penecilin.

Edit for title and one parenthetical

Edited October 1, 2005 by softwareNerd

[Pancho Villa]

I repeat: no precautions? You kid. There are many, many ways to be cautious and rather safe during a pandemic that do not involve medicine.

More to the point, though: it isn't happening now? There is no effective system - repeat, no effective system - that will make people take their pills fully. Many, many people are stupid about how they take their medicine, even today.

However, in a LFC economy? Stupidity would be abjectly punished. People, to support its ideals, would have to be far-thinking and (for the most part) rational. I think that gives far better odds that silly, unenforceable regulations or lawsuits that people will responsibly use medicines.

[scottkursk]

I repeat: no precautions? You kid. There are many, many ways to be cautious and rather safe during a pandemic that do not involve medicine.

In the case of HIV, it is almost an entirely avoidable disease. But things like a massive influenza outbrake or disease resistant smallpox etc, short of locking yourself in your house and becoming a hermit until someone finds the cure is the only way to defend against it. All it takes is a sneeze and someone then pushing an elevator button to spread the illnesses. That or someone sneezing on a plane and the germs being recirculated again and again on the flight. Short of wearing a mask ala Michael Jackson and washing your hands like someone with OCD is the only way to prevent it. Even then you still are at risk of someone at the packing for the face mask sneezing...

More to the point, though: it isn't happening now? There is no effective system - repeat, no effective system - that will make people take their pills fully. Many, many people are stupid about how they take their medicine, even today.

I agree. The problem I cite with people being able to take antibiotics now is they don't take their full course. But the medical community has responded by not perscribing the drugs unless it's a serious case. Not all the medical community does that but it is a growing movement. Still, I recently got a perscription for a drug that could realistically kill me if I missed a couple doses or stopped taking it but my doctor failed to mention it or even educate me on the proper use. I'm an informed consumer and actually read the literature that is included with the medicine along with what the drug company says on their website. Problem is most people wouldn't, and that is the problem. I'm not suggesting that increased or even current regulation is the solution. Informed consumers and informed use is. I could sue the doctor for not fully informing me of the drugs use but that isn't realistic. Heck, my wife could handle the suit for me for free but it still wouldn't change things.

However, in a LFC economy? Stupidity would be abjectly punished. People, to support its ideals, would have to be far-thinking and (for the most part) rational. I think that gives far better odds that silly, unenforceable regulations or lawsuits that people will responsibly use medicines.

Yes, stupidity is punished and I think it should be. However, in the case of things like antibiotics, stupidity effects more than the stupid person. If someone wants to stick heroin or methamphetamines in their blood until they die, that is their business. Personally I'd recomend easier ways to kill oneself. However, if I want to shoot myself nobody gets hurt. If I strap a bomb to my chest and detonate it or do it by setting my apartment on fire, then other people are darn well going to be effected.

But what is the solution? I honestly don't know. I agree the more LFC our system is the better. However even Rand had issues with ownership of machine guns and explosives. The potential for significant damage to others outweighed the right of the individual to use said devices. It is a stretch to compare over the counter use of Cipro to civilian ownership of a case of machine guns. Still, a civilian can with some work get a license to own machine guns. It's called a class 3 firearm license. I'd love to own a Sten for historical purposes but I understand that the 5 other firearms I own should absolutely not be regulated. I can do more damage with my goose gun than I could ever do with a Sten but the Sten falls in a class of seriously dangerous weapons.

Hence, I'll gladly take Advil (which can and has caused liver and kidney failure etc with misuse) and will fight for my right to do it. Why? If I take to much I only kill myself. However, if I take Keflex for a sniffle then that sniffle can easily turn into something MUCH more serious and could kill you.

[BurgessLau]

[...] we agree that all people are responsible for their own actions so as long as they don't cause harm on others.

[The REPLY button was giving me only a partial quote, so I had to pick up the line above separately -- but still accurately, I hope.]

Could you elaborate on this? I have never heard such a principle. In the first place, by "we" do you mean Objectivists?

Second, I would say your point, if I have understood it, is incorrect. Whether we harm others or not, we are still responsible for our actions.

Third, just for clarification of a point probably -- and rightly -- assumed, not everyone is responsible for his actions. People who are insane, for example, are not morally or legally responsible for their actions.

Fourth, perhaps you are saying we have a right to do anything we want to as long as it doesn't harm others. If so, you are correct-- but only if one defines "harm" in an objective way in terms of rights or, more broadly, justice. For example, if I build a skyscraper in front of your four-story condominium building, blocking your beloved view of the setting sun, I have "harmed" you, but I have not violated your rights. Or, for another example, if I buy a painting that you love to view, and I burn it, I have harmed you, but should that be a guide to my actions?

Edited October 1, 2005 by BurgessLau

[Liriodendron Tulipifera]

The doctor said he had nothing to loose so he said try an old remedy of a soup made from moldy bread. It worked.

Heh. LOL. There are even crazier stories, I can assure you. If anyone is interested, there are some cool books on fungi out there: Magical Mushrooms, Mysterious Molds; and Mr. Bloomfield's Orchard. Again, I am getting off topic.

Scott, I largely agree. But would we have to balance the overall good against the overall bad? Kind of like we do with pollution? That industry adds more benefit to our lives than the resulting harm, so we put up with pollution. Likewise with antibiotics, that far more lives would have been lost without their discovery than with their discovery, even with these drug-resistant strains? Now, this is not to say that the harm of antibiotics could not eventually exceed the benefits to humans, as measured by total lives saved or whatever...

Don't know, not sure if there is an easy answer to this one. Just thinking aloud.

[Liriodendron Tulipifera]

Oh, yeah, and the title is not as above, it is Magical Mushrooms, MISCHIEVOUS molds. Mischievous. Very good books for anyone interested in how fungi have altered the course of human history.