US corporate pushers

[Cunt]

I remember the Dawktor telling me once that during his brief (and much hated) stint as a GP, drug companies would offer places on holidays and the like, thinly disguised as ‘conferences’ in warm and sunny locations. A practice I believe that has been stopped now. They would hardly have offered jollies like that with no expectation of a return on their investment.

When someone criticises cops, I like to ask if they would themselves serve as a law enforcement officer.

It's because when I considered that question, it shed a bit of uncomfortable light on my own bias and ignorance.

With that experience in mind, I ask you this - how would you sell pharmaceutical drugs in the current, awful world we live in?

Remembering, of course, that corporate bosses (a.k.a. - shareholders) fire you if you do it wrong...

It seems to me to be a G.E.B. - loop. (from that book...Godel Escher Bach an Eternal Golden Braid)

If so, it may be self-organized to ruin people...

[Rum]

Here a body called NICE. evaluates new drugs and asseses them for use by the NHS. They have a number of criteria including efficacy and value for money. They seem to me to be the best criteria and both should be evidence led.

This is where you provide a list of improbable reasons why such a system doesn’t work. Insert here }

A link to NICE
https://www.nice.org.uk/about/what-we-d ... l-guidance

[Cunt]

Here a body called NICE. evaluates new drugs and asseses them for use by the NHS. They have a number of criteria including efficacy and value for money. They seem to me to be the best criteria and both should be evidence led.

This is where you provide a list of improbable reasons why such a system doesn’t work. Insert here:


https://www.nice.org.uk/about/what-we-d ... l-guidance

No I don't.

I don't have enough interest in that. I just think that if a 'salespeople and customers' arrangement is there, being a salesperson for a drug company would make me feel skeezy. No matter how I consider it.

Even if I have only one customer, and it's a government. I just can't think of a 'sales' approach which is easy to celebrate.

I mean, in a world where competition exists in the drug market. It looks like total control works under 'NICE' (or 'works' well enough)

It also looks to me like companies making drugs would be motivated to earn money...

Have you read the book I referenced, Rum? The element I remember being hit with, was the inevitability of some 'loops'. The way Escher could 'force' you to see stairs that were impossible, or fish that became birds...

No big surprise, I didn't get enough out of the book for you to think of as smart, but that 'inevitable loop' is the thing I'm mentioning here. If the corporate pushers were banished immediately, but not the despair, I think there could be another 'Gin craze' or 'huffing gasoline' craze.

How many of these 'drug crazes' have you lived through, Rum? I've heard it about cocaine, heroin, crack, meth, and some chewable from Africa whose name I misremember. It almost seems like many different drugs are hystericalized the same way.

Not to deny, of course, the horrific problem of shit-shows like fentanyl and upward. Stuff is so dangerous that hazmat cops have to secure a lot of scenes. Airborne particles could be harmful.

Oh, and they ship it concentrated (difficult to detect, at best) and mix it up in their garage, or basement. Mixing sounds simple, but it is far from it.
Quality varies, sometimes wildly.

[Rum]

I’ve really no idea what you are getting at. Drug companies are profit making concerns and they wield huge power. Ever was it so. If they land a biggy like viagra they stand to make billions. It is up to socially focused governments to regulate them. Here, for example, drugs can’t be advertised on TV. Good plan.

[Cunt]

I’ve really no idea what you are getting at. Drug companies are profit making concerns and they wield huge power. Ever was it so. If they land a biggy like viagra they stand to make billions. It is up to socially focused governments to regulate them. Here, for example, drugs can’t be advertised on TV. Good plan.

I just mean that profit WILL be a motive, so there will be unavoidable greed, exploitation and such.

I don't know what the best way is, honestly, but it doesn't remove the corporate greed problem to be routing all the sales through one government agency.

It could be a case of 'best of the terrible answers', but they don't stop pushing, they just push in less obvious ways. (look to Canada's current corporate fiasco with the PM's office)

I've always thought drugs shouldn't be illegal, but profiting off addiction should be.

Unworkable, as far as I can tell, but I can dream, right?

[Svartalf]

I remember the Dawktor telling me once that during his brief (and much hated) stint as a GP, drug companies would offer places on holidays and the like, thinly disguised as ‘conferences’ in warm and sunny locations. A practice I believe that has been stopped now. They would hardly have offered jollies like that with no expectation of a return on their investment.

that's been forbidden here, and I'm lucky enough to have a GP who likes to prescribr the strict minimal amount of meds necessary. I still have 4 daily drugs, not counting my head meds.

[Cunt]

I know that physicians here will sometimes give patients samples, but I don't know how the 'behind the scenes' stuff goes. Just that it was a way for them to help patients directly.

I expect it is dirty as fuck in Canada, with so much corruption accepted publicly as it is.

[JimC]

The manufacturers pushed a massive advertising campaign for their product, and lied copiously. They stated that the percentage of people who get addicted was less than 1%, whereas it is actually 25%, which they knew at the time. pErv, you cannot lay all the blame on doctors (although of course they deserve some) - massive corporate profiteering from the misery of others is the central issue. I hope the massive lawsuit coming up hits the bastards hard...

[Cunt]

The manufacturers pushed a massive advertising campaign for their product, and lied copiously. They stated that the percentage of people who get addicted was less than 1%, whereas it is actually 25%, which they knew at the time. pErv, you cannot lay all the blame on doctors (although of course they deserve some) - massive corporate profiteering from the misery of others is the central issue. I hope the massive lawsuit coming up hits the bastards hard...

In your 'NICE' governed system (sorry if I misremembered the acronym) is there a current similar problem? If it is different because of the oversight, I would think it would show dramatically.

I still think substance abuse is less about substance and more about abuse, though.

[Rum]

NICE is British. Jim is Australian and lives there.

[Svartalf]

here, the only remedies that can be advertised are OtC stuff, not real medical drugs, actually, a number of thos advertised drugs are pure woo, like homeopathy or the like

[Sean Hayden]

What's wrong with advertising drugs? It may encourage some people to see a doctor and get the help they need.

[JimC]

Drugs, particularly those that can be addictive, are not ordinary consumer goods. They should be prescribed by someone who is solely concerned with maximising the patient's health, not advertised like candy. And that is without considering both the false advertising and the pressure put on doctors to prescribe. It resulted in a tsunami of health problems for the American poor...

[Sean Hayden]

America's problem is its culture, and while not completely independent of the point you're making, I think it's reasonable to assume a solution to poor drug addicts doesn't necessarily or even probably include stopping the advertising of drugs.

[Rum]

What's wrong with advertising drugs? It may encourage some people to see a doctor and get the help they need.

A bit ironic in the land where many can’t afford proper health care!

The primary goal of advertising drugs is not of course to help people but to sell a product.

The USA and New Zealand are, oddly enough, the only two countries which allow direct marketing to consumers.