Technology

When it comes to therapies that are likely toxic, e.g. chemo, that's why the sponsor has to demonstrate through pre-clinical data that there is a high enough likelihood that the benefits will outweigh the harm that it is a legitimate therapy to trial on humans. Even then there should still be thorough, audited processes for obtaining fully informed consent before recruiting patients into these trials, including making certain they are aware the trial may cause more harm than standard of care.

It's the burden of evidence required in pre-clinical data that makes me defend animal testing despite being vegan.

Unless you actually start looking into the whole of the aids epidemic its easy to miss what an absolute clusterfuck it was. The systems in place weren't prepared at all for it and through a combination of maliciousness, ideological hardheadedness, and novel circumstances more Americans were killed by a virus than by the Viet Cong. But because it hit a group that was already fighting for our rights as well as the fact physicians in high places understood that their duty was not to the public "morality" but to public health things were able to be fought.

Medicine has always relied on killing enough patients to determine how safe/effective or not a drug or procedure might be. We simply do not have the technology to provide definitive answers any other way as of yet. This is why one "practices" medicine and not "does" medicine. And administering a drug to a patient is called a "trial." There is simply no way to know the outcome until the outcome arrives. Years of experience can give you a fair indication of what to expect, but expectations are not definitive answers.

As a keynote speaker ER Doctor stated at an EMS seminar I attended, "No matter how much knowledge and skills we think we know and have, modern medicine still boils down to doing things to keep the patient amused and letting nature take it's course." As a simple medic, that was a thought that stuck with me through my 15 years in the back of the bus. It scared the bejeezus out of me.

Opening someone's head to pretend to have done something sounds very unnecessarily cruel and stupid.

Thank you for providing the extra context. That's very helpful.

That's the best case.

I'm thinking thalidomide.

Both can be true.

It can be true that the FDA was corrupted/captured to some extent and needs more 'skeptial' and less-industry-friendly leadership. At the same time, skepticism in science is not the answer.

This is my dillema with MAGA. Many of the issues they tackle are spot on, even if people don't like to hear that. They're often right, even when the proposed solutions are wrong and damaging. I think this a lot when I hear RFK speak, nodding my head at the first assertion then grinding my teeth as he goes on.

It's tricky. Part of the problem, I think, is if you do have corruption and carelessness in something like the FDA, there's no amount of careful reporting that can fix it - it becomes propaganda.

It's necessary to address the problems, though I still agree with being careful about what information is broadcast and how - but it's necessary to keep information open and challenge things otherwise you end up worse down the line. A measles epidemic is bad. But imagine if you suppressed thalidomide results and other failures, allowing things to get worse and worse in the name of not damaging people's trust, then eventually (after years of covered-up harm) it all comes out and people abandon scientific medicine altogether!

You don't have to imagine... I'm sure a large component of both vaccine skepticism and Trump's presidency have come because of suppressed and partially-suppressed wrongdoing by all the people we think the country should trust. Eventually people break and look for something else.

So, I agree with you, but in my opinion we do need to work more, not less, at transparency and truth even when it's problematic.

the problem with puberty blockers is that they have an explicit and verifiable use case. thats not what drugs are supposed to do! theyre supposed to do whatever you say they do!

They’re busy researching new and exciting ways of denying coverage.

They absolutely do this. A drug with a lack of efficacy data is a great way to get shortlisted to insurance denials

It’s one of the frustrating things bc people can then easily manipulate the issue. A drug that can be prescribed a doctor and filled by a pharmacy being denied by an insurance company is very easy to write about online. Then it’s a slam piece, “x insurance company denied me my meds”. Basically 0 people will have any interest in the nuance that the medication is bullshit or possibly even harmful. Too bad insurance companies made their bed by being absolutely horrible for decades, I guess.

Big Pharma protocol for decades now, with revolving door executives via FDA. What could go wrong?

Over the last several decades...

This is systemic.

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Notably, Phenylephrine was approved in pill form for decongestion, and is all over the place... but doesn't do a damn thing. Trying to keep pseudoephedrine limited in the market to try to fight meth.