Medical roundup

6 Comments

  • “for a drug that it did not make and did not sell?”

    But if I understand it correctly, they DID sell the rights to sell the drug, and (allegedly) knew of the problem before they sold the rights, but didn’t adjust the label before the sale. And although an off-label use was involved, the company allegedly encouraged this off-label use at one point. Assuming that’s true (as the court must at this stage) I don’t find it ridiculous that they’d be liable. There might be factual arguments, but those are for a jury.

  • “But if I understand it correctly, they DID sell the rights to sell the drug”

    You don’t understand correctly. They did not sell anything to the company that manufactured the specific doses in question in this case.

    Generic drugs are generally not the result of the original developer selling the rights, but rather that the original developer’s exclusive rights resulting from a patent expiring.

    Patents are only last for 20 years.

  • From Jeffrey Singer’s Cato reprint of his Orange County Register article:

    The “immediate challenge” is to reduce the number of overdose deaths — not the opioid supply. The government should make it easier for health care practitioners to prescribe methadone, Suboxone and other forms of Medication Assisted Treatment to addicts; it should promote safe syringe programs to stem the spread of disease; encourage “Good Samaritan” laws so that overdose witnesses won’t fear arrest if they call for help; and make the antidote naloxone more widely available — even over-the-counter. This approach called “harm reduction” is the ethical way to address the overdose crisis.

    Harm reduction is anathema for the drug prohibitionists who control government policy. They are driven by what Mencken called “mortal fear that somewhere, sometime, someone is enjoying himself.” Prohibitionists consider death by overdose or preventable disease to be justifiable punishment for offending their delicate moral sensibilities.

    Prohibitionists can always be found for any activity in which someone else finds pleasure, whether it’s sex, drugs or rock ‘n roll. Unfortunately, for more than a century prohibitionists have had sufficient political power to make drug use far more dangerous than drugs alone could ever bring about.

    • En Passant, aptly named. You seem to have an unprecedented insight into the minds and hearts of those you disagree with. Please eschew diatribe or take your opinions where people like to fight. We strive for informed and reasoned points of view here.

      • You seem to have an unprecedented insight into the minds and hearts of those you disagree with.

        Statements from those opposed to harm reduction approaches are easy to find.

        From former US “Drug Czar” John P. Walters, July 21st, 2014 on the subject “Bad Science: The Marijuana Experiment Has Failed”:

        All in all, legalization would be a contribution towards the philosophy of “harm reduction” whereby one doesn’t seek to prohibit a dangerous behavior but rather, tries to manage its consequences. This maneuver also has been revealed as a fraud.

  • Was it entirely coincidence that Toyota Motors of North America started moving their headquarters from California to Texas in 2014, after they had been ripped off for $1.2 billion in a sudden-acceleration feeding frenzy?