5 ms·

>I doubt that a little pressure from multinational pharma companies will do much to reverse the overall trend. Good. An imperfect (with the odd frog), but che

>I doubt that a little pressure from multinational pharma companies will do much to reverse the overall trend. Good. An imperfect (with the odd frog), but cheap, system that can save thousands of lives is perfectly acceptable to me.

StavrosK 11y ago
Really? I'd rather die than eat some fly poop that found its way to my life-saving medication!
- garagemc2 11y ago
  Than do that, but don't stop others. Have your originals, let those that need it have their generics. Just because you shop at waitrose doesn't give you the right to stop people shopping at Aldi!
  - saint_fiasco 11y ago
    StavrosK is being sarcastic. That's why he specified 'life-saving medication'.
    - StavrosK 11y ago
      Thank you, you nailed it.
      - garagemc2 11y ago
        My bad. Sorry.
        StavrosK 11y ago
        No problem, you can never tell with Poe's law.
      - garagemc2 11y ago
        My bad. Sorry.
  - StavrosK 11y ago
    Apparently I needed the sarcasm tag. Who would take "I'd rather die than eat fly poop" seriously?
- _-__--- 11y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_England_Compounding_Center#2012_meningitis_outbreak_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_England_Compounding_Center... The implications of dirty drug synthesis and medication compounding processes are dangerous and real. Deleted testing results are a red flag; however, keep in mind that lack of evidence to the contrary is not evidence of the positive. I see this more as regulation being used to limit international competition than anything promoting general human welfare.
  - StavrosK 11y ago
    They definitely are real, but I'm not sure that the case is so clear-cut against generics. Would you rather save the lives of 100,000 people and cause 2,000 of them meningitis, or have 100,000 people die because they can't get cheap medication?
pinaceae 11y ago
bullshit. grandiose statement, but once your precious baby gets born with no legs your stance will be a tad different. pharma topics are so hilariously ill suited for public discussion, so many half truths and misconceptions. like grandma discussing JS frameworks - or vaccinations. fun fact: pharma offers tiered pricing, matching economic structures. HIV treatments in Africa are basically free. india plays fast and loose with pharma patents, something not even china has done. so, if even the copy-happy chinese understand the benefits of a regulated pharma market, maybe there is something to it, no? the pharma/biotech industry has saved more lives than any uber, airbnb, slack, whatever tech unicorn. the one industry that comes close is big-agriculture with GMOs and fertilizers - and guess what, the same awesome discussion happens there. /sigh
- lewiseason 11y ago
  > pharma topics are so hilariously ill suited for public discussion, so many half truths and misconceptions If the reason they're so ill suited for public discussion is the half truths and misconceptions, statements like this one aren't doing anything to help: > once your precious baby gets born with no legs your stance will be a tad different
  - iofj 11y ago
    Whilst I agree with you. I would like to point out that babies being born with no legs (generally with appendages missing) is in fact known to be one of the great screwups of pharmacology (though anyone reporting it today would undoubtedly hold the pharma industry responsible. In my opinion that is not a reasonable position to take. It was almost unheard of to do separate pregnancy testing (it's still not common at all), therefore blaming someone for not doing them is not fair). It is even a truism to say that medicine for pregnant women (when not relating to the pregnancy itself) is far behind "normal" medicine, as for most treatments it is not known what effect they'll have on the embryo, or if there will be interactions between the pregnancy and the treatment. Of course there is also a number of treatments that can't be used because they're known to be harmful, but not nearly as many. This crisis is one of the main reasons for this. But what caused babies with no legs: The softenon/thalomide disaster. Here's the full story: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thalidomide#Birth_defects_crisis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thalidomide#Birth_defects_cris... More photos illustrating exactly what went wrong can be found here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phocomelia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phocomelia The scary part is that it was a problem relating to the chirality of the molecule used. Very few chemical tests of the molecule would have even revealed that there were two kinds of the molecule, and there was no good reason to assume one would cause deformed babies. In other words: this was extremely likely (and sadly) an honest mistake. 20000 deformed babies were born, about half survived (I went to school with a very cute and smart one). One enantiomer causes babies with missing appendages, one does not. Both help against a number of cancers, various serious diseases and there is some use as a sedative and it helps against morning sickness during pregnancy. Getting the chirality right is bloody hard, even for people with advanced chemistry degrees (especially getting to the required purity). This disaster is also well known for being one of the main reasons our current pharma regime is what it is.

StavrosK 11y ago

Really? I'd rather die than eat some fly poop that found its way to my life-saving medication!

garagemc2 11y ago
Than do that, but don't stop others. Have your originals, let those that need it have their generics. Just because you shop at waitrose doesn't give you the right to stop people shopping at Aldi!
- saint_fiasco 11y ago
  StavrosK is being sarcastic. That's why he specified 'life-saving medication'.
  - StavrosK 11y ago
    Thank you, you nailed it.
    - garagemc2 11y ago
      My bad. Sorry.
      - StavrosK 11y ago
        No problem, you can never tell with Poe's law.
    - garagemc2 11y ago
      My bad. Sorry.
- StavrosK 11y ago
  Apparently I needed the sarcasm tag. Who would take "I'd rather die than eat fly poop" seriously?
_-__--- 11y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_England_Compounding_Center#2012_meningitis_outbreak_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_England_Compounding_Center... The implications of dirty drug synthesis and medication compounding processes are dangerous and real. Deleted testing results are a red flag; however, keep in mind that lack of evidence to the contrary is not evidence of the positive. I see this more as regulation being used to limit international competition than anything promoting general human welfare.
- StavrosK 11y ago
  They definitely are real, but I'm not sure that the case is so clear-cut against generics. Would you rather save the lives of 100,000 people and cause 2,000 of them meningitis, or have 100,000 people die because they can't get cheap medication?

pinaceae 11y ago

bullshit. grandiose statement, but once your precious baby gets born with no legs your stance will be a tad different. pharma topics are so hilariously ill suited for public discussion, so many half truths and misconceptions. like grandma discussing JS frameworks - or vaccinations. fun fact: pharma offers tiered pricing, matching economic structures. HIV treatments in Africa are basically free. india plays fast and loose with pharma patents, something not even china has done. so, if even the copy-happy chinese understand the benefits of a regulated pharma market, maybe there is something to it, no? the pharma/biotech industry has saved more lives than any uber, airbnb, slack, whatever tech unicorn. the one industry that comes close is big-agriculture with GMOs and fertilizers - and guess what, the same awesome discussion happens there. /sigh

lewiseason 11y ago
> pharma topics are so hilariously ill suited for public discussion, so many half truths and misconceptions If the reason they're so ill suited for public discussion is the half truths and misconceptions, statements like this one aren't doing anything to help: > once your precious baby gets born with no legs your stance will be a tad different
- iofj 11y ago
  Whilst I agree with you. I would like to point out that babies being born with no legs (generally with appendages missing) is in fact known to be one of the great screwups of pharmacology (though anyone reporting it today would undoubtedly hold the pharma industry responsible. In my opinion that is not a reasonable position to take. It was almost unheard of to do separate pregnancy testing (it's still not common at all), therefore blaming someone for not doing them is not fair). It is even a truism to say that medicine for pregnant women (when not relating to the pregnancy itself) is far behind "normal" medicine, as for most treatments it is not known what effect they'll have on the embryo, or if there will be interactions between the pregnancy and the treatment. Of course there is also a number of treatments that can't be used because they're known to be harmful, but not nearly as many. This crisis is one of the main reasons for this. But what caused babies with no legs: The softenon/thalomide disaster. Here's the full story: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thalidomide#Birth_defects_crisis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thalidomide#Birth_defects_cris... More photos illustrating exactly what went wrong can be found here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phocomelia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phocomelia The scary part is that it was a problem relating to the chirality of the molecule used. Very few chemical tests of the molecule would have even revealed that there were two kinds of the molecule, and there was no good reason to assume one would cause deformed babies. In other words: this was extremely likely (and sadly) an honest mistake. 20000 deformed babies were born, about half survived (I went to school with a very cute and smart one). One enantiomer causes babies with missing appendages, one does not. Both help against a number of cancers, various serious diseases and there is some use as a sedative and it helps against morning sickness during pregnancy. Getting the chirality right is bloody hard, even for people with advanced chemistry degrees (especially getting to the required purity). This disaster is also well known for being one of the main reasons our current pharma regime is what it is.