[geeks] Drug prices (was Re: nVidia 8800GT for Apple Mac Pro)

[hike]

On Fri, May 23, 2008 at 10:14 AM, Dan Sikorski <me at dansikorski.com> wrote:

> Sandwich Maker wrote:
>
>> " From: Lionel Peterson <lionel4287 at verizon.net>
>> " Personally, I'd like to see Pharma's be prevented from advertising
>> " drugs to consumers here in teh US. That just makes no sense to me -
>> " your Doctor wants to prescribe compound A, but you convince him that
>> " you want compound B because you like the ad they ran in Time Magazine?
>> " WTF?
>>
>> agreed.  the info should be available somehow; i've heard of enough
>> cases where the patient was more informed than the doctor, but the
>> slanted half-truths that pass for advertising should be banned.
>>
>>
> I've always figured that the advertisements were targeted to people who do
> not go to the doctor and have problems that new drugs could help with.
> For example, there is a new drug for psoriasis.  Although i have no clue
> what the effectiveness of it is, let's assume for this example that it's
> very effective.  Someone who has psoriasis may have visited the doctor
> several times in their life and never had an effective treatment, or never
> visited a doctor about it because they knew that there were no effective
> treatments.  The advertisement informs this person that there is a new
> treatment available and that they should go talk to their doctor about it.
> I can justify the existence of the advertisements this way, but I certainly
> will not defend the misleading nature of a lot of them.  Some of the
> advertisements I've seen don't really seem to indicate what the drug is used
> to treat, they just made it sound like everyone's life would be better if
> they took it, as long as they're willing to live with a laundry list of side
> effects.\\
>
> As far as the patient being more informed than their doctor, that's not
> difficult.  When i have a medical condition, I read as much about it as
> possible.  My general practitioner cannot possibly devote that much time to
> researching the specific conditions of all of his patients.  I expect him to
> have broad knowledge of health conditions and their treatments.  On the
> other hand, if i visit a specialist, that is a different story.  I would
> expect a specialist to know much more than me about his specific area of
> expertise.
>
>   -Dan Sikorski
>
> _______________________________________________
> GEEKS:  http://www.sunhelp.org/mailman/listinfo/geeks
>


I know a few doctors and have heard other complain in the media that the
result of medicine advertising is that people/patients demand that the
doctor prescibe these newly, advertised drugs.  The number of people who
come in because "this new drug might work" is nil.  People that interested
in their condition have always had other avenue to keep up with medical
improvements in their area of interest.   From what these doctors have said,
the negative greatly out weigh any positives.