The Pharmaceutical Industry

[jinx]

Originally Posted by Happy Monkey

Advertising and profit are corrupting forces on the industry. But that's all there is in the alternative industry

Well that and thousands of years of use... of trial and error. And you don't see much advertising... or profit really, when you compare to mainstream big pharma medicine.

The fact that some clinical trials are botched is not a good reason to skip them altogether.

Hey that's fine, make your choices. And mind your own business when it comes to mine ok? Because I might want to try an herbal tea before I get an expensive prescription... or I might try a dab of clove oil before I take a bunch of narcotics etc etc... Placebo effect? Ok fine, I'll take the cheapest/easiest one thanks.

edit: FYI: Botched and fabricated mean two different things.

[sugarpop]

Originally Posted by Happy Monkey

Because the worst practices of the medical industry, the unfortunate examples that make up the bulk of these anti-pharmaceutical news articles, are the standard practice of the alternatives. Advertising and profit are corrupting forces on the industry. But that's all there is in the alternative industry - they are the pharmaceutical industry without the clinical trials.

The fact that some clinical trials are botched is not a good reason to skip them altogether.

Chinese and Ayurvedic Medicine have been tested and proved for over 5000 years.

[sugarpop]

Originally Posted by Happy Monkey

And now that they've checked, what will happen to the "alternative medicines" that failed the test? I'm guessing that ginger for chemo is not a significant percentage of their business.

When Lily advertises a drug for something that studies have found it has no effect on, it is a scandal, and rightly so. It should be an even bigger scandal for the "alternative medicine" industry, for whom that is the business model. Lily could have put Zyprexa in the herbal remedy aisle with a few testimonials and they wouldn't have needed to do any testing in the first place.

Actually a lot of alternative remedies work great. Ginger DOES help nausea. I don't know if it works for chemo, but in general, it works. Pot does work for chemo though. It's really stupid that it's illegal.

[DeepOne]

The thing about Lily is when they first invented their new wonder pill Zyprexa they wanted to get it out there and into the consumer as quickly as possible.
The use of this drug spread like Aspirin and the doctors were getting free samples and all the pens, notepads and clocks they could eat.
For a person with insurance the prescription was mere pennies (o.k. a couple bucks) but the actual cost of a month's worth of this garbage was well over a hundred dollars. See where this is going?
Later studies found that this pill was causing diabetes because of all the sugar cravings and sudden weight gain, and a severe dependency on the drug, even if you didn't really need it.
By that I mean, if you told a doctor in 99' that you were depressed, they'd prescribe this crap. Yes, I've seen it happen. It's disgusting.
So years pass for these patients taking this pill, they don't feel better (in fact they don't "feel" anything at all) and they want to be relieved of Zyprexa's monster grip.
Nope, you have to be weened off of it slowly or it can cause panic attacks, heart problems, mania, you know, like heroin addiction.
If you ask my opinion it should either be pulled or doctors should use a little more discretion with who they're prescribing this shit to.
That's my 2 cents.

[jinx]

The Emperor's New Drugs.

"Yes there is a placebo effect, but is there a powerful antidepressant drug effect?"

The authors expected a substantial placebo effect, but were surprised by the small medication effect that they found. It is suggested that their analysis of FDA data is likely to prove controversial, and although the difference in response between antidepressant medication and inert placebo was statistically significant, in clinical terms it was very small, leading Kirsch et al to ask whether these medications are "the emperor's new drugs."

[Undertoad]

I tried everything for chronic panic and anxiety attacks. Exercise, breath control, herbal remedies, meditation, eating differently. All of this had no effect, placebo or otherwise. Only 15mg of Paxil solved the problem, and has now solved it for 13 years, allowing me to live a normal life.

[Flint]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

...allowing me to live a normal life.

Dude, I don't think it's working!

[DeepOne]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

I tried everything for chronic panic and anxiety attacks. Exercise, breath control, herbal remedies, meditation, eating differently. All of this had no effect, placebo or otherwise. Only 15mg of Paxil solved the problem, and has now solved it for 13 years, allowing me to live a normal life.

Sometimes the drugs do what they're intended to do.
It's when they're prescribed for things that they're not intended for that we run into problems.

ex- preparation H is not best used for a headache

[glatt]

sometimes off-label uses are just fine though. A good example is using extra doses of birth control pills as a "morning after" pill back before the morning after pill was available.

[DeepOne]

Originally Posted by glatt

sometimes off-label uses are just fine though. A good example is using extra doses of birth control pills as a "morning after" pill back before the morning after pill was available.

This sounds like an incredibly dumb idea.

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by DeepOne

This sounds like an incredibly dumb idea.

Actually it is an accepted use of BCP.

[sugarpop]

Originally Posted by DeepOne

ex- preparation H is not best used for a headache

But apparently it works great on puffy eyes. At least that's what models say.

[jinx]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

I tried everything for chronic panic and anxiety attacks. Exercise, breath control, herbal remedies, meditation, eating differently. All of this had no effect, placebo or otherwise. Only 15mg of Paxil solved the problem, and has now solved it for 13 years, allowing me to live a normal life.

When I put calendula on a burn, it stops hurting.

[ZenGum]

Meanwhile, at XKCD ...

[Undertoad]

Originally Posted by jinx

When I put calendula on a burn, it stops hurting.

Whaddya got for hypertension and high triglycerides?