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>I advised her to get off the drug ASAP. Thankfully, she listened. This bothers me, this isn't how medicine works. While there's very, very legitimate reasons

>I advised her to get off the drug ASAP. Thankfully, she listened. This bothers me, this isn't how medicine works. While there's very, very legitimate reasons to be critical of over prescribing and marketing, "I heard about an adverse outcome in someone else that may or may not be related to a drug she was taking" is not a good reason to recommending another person to stop treatment. All medical interventions are a cost-benefit analysis and all medical interventions have risk, some more than others. Forgoing medical interventions also has risks and benefits. For all we know the risks were very minimal and the drug helped the sister. This could have been very harmful advice if the drug required, say, tapering down and the sister went off of it without assistance of a medical provider. The author is themselves handing out incredibly rash and potentiality harmful advice.

forlulz 10y ago
True, the author is no doctor, but in this case this is not the only drug available. In the article: “The quiz doesn’t work,” she said. “Oh. What’s broken?” I asked. “Well, it seems that no matter what I do, the quiz recommends the client’s drug as the best possible treatment. The only exception is if I say I’m allergic. Or if I say I am already taking it.”
- nommm-nommm 10y ago
  What does that have to do with anything at all? The morale of the story is he or she heard something on the six o'clock news and recommend the sister stop treatment based on that. That's extremely improper advice. The author is apparently upset about assisting in giving what they believe to be improper medical advice so they proceeded to give improper medical advice themselves. There's also a huge logical flaw to go from "this drug had a side effect that may have caused death in one person" to "this drug is inappropriate for my sister"
- paulcole 10y ago
  Treatments != drugs. What if other options were therapy or surgery?
losvedir 10y ago
Yes! That line bothered me, too. I like the overall message, but the brother is not a medical professional and absolutely should not be giving out medical advice like that.
- finnh 10y ago
  Well, the brother wrote an online quiz that gave out bogus medical advice.
oconnor663 10y ago
Even suicidal thoughts. It sounds bad, and it's bad, but a lot of antidepressants have that side effect. This stuff is complicated.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
cookiecaper 10y ago
Yes. While programmers being asked to do unethical things is a salient topic, the posted article feels pretty weak on all fronts. He admits that the site as designed was compliant with medical advertising law. Its goal was to get people thinking about a medication that still required a doctor's approval to obtain. His "infraction" was writing code that would indicate this prescription is a good solution to the various problems that, presumably, the medication addressed. I personally don't see any ethical problem with that. The author should probably speak to a professional therapist who can help him process this event and understand that he shares no responsibility for the complication that caused a user of the drug, who may have benefited substantially before the complication occurred, to commit suicide.
- exolymph 10y ago
  > His "infraction" was writing code that would indicate this prescription is a good solution to the various problems that, presumably, the medication addressed. I personally don't see any ethical problem with that. The problem with the quiz was that no matter how you answered, unless you said you were already taking the drug or explicitly allergic to it, the recommended solution was the drug. In other words, this was presented as a way to suss out which of various treatments would be appropriate, but it actually only recommended one.
  - cookiecaper 10y ago
    I don't think that's deceptive. Do you really need a label that says "an online quiz is not a diagnosis"? Obviously marketers are going to create such content with the intention of demonstrating how their product can be useful to people. I doubt anyone was under the false impression that they weren't on a marketing site or that the online quiz was a definitive medical device capable of providing diagnostic data. If this was OTC I may see more cause for concern, but as an Rx drug, any such suppositions would still require a doctor's signoff. We'd all prefer not to be involved in the mass manipulation of marketing/advertising at all, but that's not real life. As far as this goes, from the details in the article, it doesn't sound like an egregiously wrong thing. It also sounds like the author was at peace with it until he learned that someone who took the medication had committed suicide. That's certainly some misdirected angst. This was almost definitely an antidepressant medication, and those require careful balancing and coordination by medical professionals. The guy who helped put together a marketing site for a drug that helps hundreds of millions of people is not responsible for the cases where incompetent medical practitioners prescribed it incorrectly.
qohen 10y ago
The author is themselves handing out incredibly rash and potentiality harmful advice. The author answers this objection [0] on the Reddit thread [1] about his "Code I'm Still Ashamed Of" post: devmastery[S] 15 points 4 days ago I hear you. To clarify... What actually happened is that she spoke to her doctor about being uncomfortable with the way the medicine was making her feel and he was able to recommend a more traditional medication that had been on the market much longer and did not end up having the same effect. Her transition was medically supervised. And she's doing great. [0] https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/5d56fo/the_code_im_still_ashamed_of/da3sw8m/ https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/5d56fo/the_cod... [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/5d56fo/the_code_im_still_ashamed_of/ https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/5d56fo/the_cod...

forlulz 10y ago

True, the author is no doctor, but in this case this is not the only drug available. In the article: “The quiz doesn’t work,” she said. “Oh. What’s broken?” I asked. “Well, it seems that no matter what I do, the quiz recommends the client’s drug as the best possible treatment. The only exception is if I say I’m allergic. Or if I say I am already taking it.”

nommm-nommm 10y ago
What does that have to do with anything at all? The morale of the story is he or she heard something on the six o'clock news and recommend the sister stop treatment based on that. That's extremely improper advice. The author is apparently upset about assisting in giving what they believe to be improper medical advice so they proceeded to give improper medical advice themselves. There's also a huge logical flaw to go from "this drug had a side effect that may have caused death in one person" to "this drug is inappropriate for my sister"
paulcole 10y ago
Treatments != drugs. What if other options were therapy or surgery?

losvedir 10y ago

Yes! That line bothered me, too. I like the overall message, but the brother is not a medical professional and absolutely should not be giving out medical advice like that.

finnh 10y ago
Well, the brother wrote an online quiz that gave out bogus medical advice.

oconnor663 10y ago

Even suicidal thoughts. It sounds bad, and it's bad, but a lot of antidepressants have that side effect. This stuff is complicated.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

cookiecaper 10y ago

Yes. While programmers being asked to do unethical things is a salient topic, the posted article feels pretty weak on all fronts. He admits that the site as designed was compliant with medical advertising law. Its goal was to get people thinking about a medication that still required a doctor's approval to obtain. His "infraction" was writing code that would indicate this prescription is a good solution to the various problems that, presumably, the medication addressed. I personally don't see any ethical problem with that. The author should probably speak to a professional therapist who can help him process this event and understand that he shares no responsibility for the complication that caused a user of the drug, who may have benefited substantially before the complication occurred, to commit suicide.

exolymph 10y ago
> His "infraction" was writing code that would indicate this prescription is a good solution to the various problems that, presumably, the medication addressed. I personally don't see any ethical problem with that. The problem with the quiz was that no matter how you answered, unless you said you were already taking the drug or explicitly allergic to it, the recommended solution was the drug. In other words, this was presented as a way to suss out which of various treatments would be appropriate, but it actually only recommended one.
- cookiecaper 10y ago
  I don't think that's deceptive. Do you really need a label that says "an online quiz is not a diagnosis"? Obviously marketers are going to create such content with the intention of demonstrating how their product can be useful to people. I doubt anyone was under the false impression that they weren't on a marketing site or that the online quiz was a definitive medical device capable of providing diagnostic data. If this was OTC I may see more cause for concern, but as an Rx drug, any such suppositions would still require a doctor's signoff. We'd all prefer not to be involved in the mass manipulation of marketing/advertising at all, but that's not real life. As far as this goes, from the details in the article, it doesn't sound like an egregiously wrong thing. It also sounds like the author was at peace with it until he learned that someone who took the medication had committed suicide. That's certainly some misdirected angst. This was almost definitely an antidepressant medication, and those require careful balancing and coordination by medical professionals. The guy who helped put together a marketing site for a drug that helps hundreds of millions of people is not responsible for the cases where incompetent medical practitioners prescribed it incorrectly.

qohen 10y ago

The author is themselves handing out incredibly rash and potentiality harmful advice. The author answers this objection [0] on the Reddit thread [1] about his "Code I'm Still Ashamed Of" post: devmastery[S] 15 points 4 days ago I hear you. To clarify... What actually happened is that she spoke to her doctor about being uncomfortable with the way the medicine was making her feel and he was able to recommend a more traditional medication that had been on the market much longer and did not end up having the same effect. Her transition was medically supervised. And she's doing great. [0] https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/5d56fo/the_code_im_still_ashamed_of/da3sw8m/ https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/5d56fo/the_cod... [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/5d56fo/the_code_im_still_ashamed_of/ https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/5d56fo/the_cod...