Posted by dj on December 6, 1999, at 11:23:24
In reply to Re: aCk! 8*P, posted by Adam on December 6, 1999, at 9:27:47
Adam,
As ever you are a voice of balance and reasonableness. However, idealism does have it's place, though it can too go to unreasonable extremes as we recently saw in Seattle. However, that is often how change happens...by drama...
In Canada in the past year there were a # of national reports about drug companies pressuring researchers and government staffers to approve drugs they had doubts about or which were not fully tested. Industry also has pressured govt. here and internationally to downsize so they have less ability to police such abuse, which the system often ignores until the media and media-savvy turn up the heat. Witness all the noise and efforts that have been make around AIDs drug development because the affected population is politically savvy and has a foothold in the mass media and entertainment industry. Whereas, cancers are much more prevalent in society and many more people are dying internationally from inadequate water and sewage treatment. People who don't have the $ or clout to affect drug and other treatment research or simple implementations.
Back to depression, the efficacy of the positive impacts of anti-depressants is often overstated and the negative impacts understated. The latter because many participants drop out during trials. The NY Times had a story titled: Some Still Despair in a Prozac Nation on July 27. In it the author notes:"Psychiatrists estimate that 60 to 70 percent of people who can tolerate the side effects of antidepressants get better with the first drug they take. But 10 percent do not respond -- even after trials on many different drugs. And still others -- the estimates of how many vary -- get better but do not recover completely."
How many others and how correct are those estimates? I've seen various figures quoted one place or another that indicate that the impact of therapy and/or drugs only impact about 1/3 of people and about 1/3 recuperate on their own or something along those lines, though I can't recall the source. Anyone know anything about this?
And on and on and on it goes, where the debate stops, nobody knows...
dj
>Nobody makes a profit by vaunting the worst-case scenerio. However, it's not like parmaceutical companies make up false claims about adverse side effects. I've never seen anyone lie.
>
... But we must dispense with idealism when it comes to drug development: It's a long, arduous, and incredibly expensive process. Until we feel like spending more of our tax dollars on basic research than ballistic missiles, you can bet than only potent economic incentives will drive >the drug discovery process forward.
>
poster:dj
thread:16263
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/19991123/msgs/16304.html