The FDA is considering on bending their rules just a bit allowing non official use of drugs. What that means is that some drugs that are use for specific things like regulating blood pressure could also be use to help other things i.e. lowering cholesterol. FDA is considering allowing pharmaceutical makers to provide doctors with medical journal studies of unapproved uses for drugs, a move critics say would undermine long-standing restrictions on marketing medicines for "off-label" purposes.
Opposing this is Rep Henry A. Waxman. He wrote “"would open the door to abusive marketing practices that will jeopardize safety, undermine public health, and lead to an increase in unapproved uses of powerful drugs," which means that Drug companies wouldn’t research the drugs side affect as much and wouldn’t need the formal FDA approval for that specific study. Example, if a drug helps with depression and FDA approved for that, but also could help with cancer but not FDA approved to help cancer. Doctors could prescribe that medication for cancer but the medication could be flawed since not enough research went into the drug for helping cancer. He believes Drug companies would push Doctors on sales of the product for money.
“To be, or Not to be,” If we go with the Drug companies many known rare diseases could help those that are sick at a much lower cost. But then again how much are we willing to risk on getting better? Either way it’s a fight between money and health. But who’s the real bad guy I wonder? Who’s really trying to help America’s Health? Is it the politician’s who care, or is it the powerful drug companies? Does it even matter as long as we get better? There are many options you can go with, but it all comes down to what you decide.
2 comments:
You make a valid statement, however while your intentions are well reserved, your firing in the wrong directions if any at all. Politicians despite what we ALL may think (myself included) do not have as much power as expected. In fact you did mention the “drug companies” and the possibility of wrong motives and corruption among them. I noticed you did not choose a side. Where one side being the evil politicians, the other being the powerful companies. Had you picked a side the correct choice would have been the drug companies themselves.
http://www.expressnews.ualberta.ca/article.cfm?id=8153
Above is a link I posted to an article on a site called newscientist.com. The
Article explains the function of a drug known as dichloroacetate (DCA). DCA has the power to kill off mostly all cancer cells, by “switching off” what makes them immortally unstoppable. However, as DCA is not patented, it may be difficult to find funding from private investors to test DCA in clinical trials. That’s right, this drug may end cancer as we know it, yet the drug companies won’t do it because of financial issues.
The following quote is from my girlfriend.
“I bet you this drug could have saved my brothers life but instead the medical community and drug companies were out trying to get all our money because the sicker my brother got, the more money they made off of us. In the end, he lost his life.”
That’s sad isn’t it? There are many different stories from a lot more people, much like this one. Drug companies have all the power, funding, and time they need, yet because of some extra money they just throw it all away, and only give us what we are willing to pay “top dollar” for. Notice though that the people who have found this cure are Canadians. (don’t worry I am not about to go against Canada). However it does make one wonder, had the cure been discovered here, in American, would this situation be any different. I for one say not yes but hell yes! Protestors would go wild, and the President would drop whatever he was doing to go sign some document to make things start happening, before the public went into riot mode.
These drug companies in Canada could learn a lot by observing the outcry for a cure here in America. Foundations like “The Magic Johnson Foundation” are led by rich and powerful people who’s desire is to put there time and money to good use. Look at Magic Johnson, he has AIDS, I am willing to wager that if he was on charge of a drug company and they found a cure for AIDS, he would be all over that.
Do you see the point I am making? These drug companies do not hear the outcry of the needy, and do not understand the pain that the patients, doctors, families, and friends are undergoing. So if one of their family members came down with cancer, would they break into their workplace to get that cure? If they did not have a wallet where their heart should be, then yes they would do whatever necessary to save their family members life.
In conclusion, I would like to go back to the last few words of your blog. When you said “Either way it’s a fight between money and health. But who’s the real bad guy I wonder? Who’s really trying to help America’s Health? Is it the politician’s who care, or is it the powerful drug companies? Does it even matter as long as we get better?”
The answer is the politicians would help, but in this case the cure is in Canada, and on top of that the rich and powerful leaders of drug companies don’t necessarily not care about us, they just REALLY like money more.
In this article posted on the blog entitled, Alien Government, the author outlines the consideration by the FDA of allowing the use of drugs to cure "non-official" causes. Representative Henry Waxman on the oppositional side, gives the argument that marketing companies would take advantage of this and market the drugs as "cure-alls." The FDA however, is saying it will release medical studies of unapproved uses for these drugs and give them to doctors as medical tools. The author asks, "Who's the real bad guy here?" and "Does it even matter as long as we get better?" of which I have opinions on both. First, there is no bad guy in this situation. The FDA is releasing medical information that may help countless numbers of people, however, by releasing this information they are opening powerful medicines up to "interpretation" on its usefulness by doctors and marketers alike. On the other hand, those who oppose the FDA's decision are worried that these medicines could not only be misused but also misrepresented. The bad side to this, is that those medicines might actually have helped people. Second, though we would all like to blame rich drug companies, I don't believe it is their fault either. They are trying to make a profit of course by encouraging larger usage amounts of their drugs, but unfortunately it is a necessary evil. So does it really matter? Only if the drugs are misused as foreseen and people end up getting hurt instead of getting helped. And if that happens, then we'll have lots of people to blame.
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