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On #4: surely in practice the choice is often going to be not "drug A or nothing?" but "drug A or drug B?" where drug B is an established standard treatment. In
by gjm11 16y ago
On #4: surely in practice the choice is often going to be not "drug A or nothing?" but "drug A or drug B?" where drug B is an established standard treatment. In that situation, choosing drug A does harm if the drug isn't effective, even if the drug itself is perfectly safe.
- alextgordon 16y agoYes, and in fact it would be bad for the drug companies bottom line, so I doubt they'd go for it in the first place. It would essentially create two groups of drugs. The pre-legislation guaranteed effective drugs and the post-legislation unguaranteed drugs. As you point out, the unguaranteed drugs would kill people, through inaction. No doctor wants to risk killing their patient, so if at all possible they'll go for the safe pre-legislation alternative. This would greatly hurt sales of new drugs, which is the last thing drug companies want to do.
- TheEzEzz 16y agoLikely a doctor would prescribe the standard treatment first (assuming it has a decent track record), and only resort to the new, unproven alternative if the standard didn't work. Or, the standard might have undesirable side effects and the patient themself would opt for the unproven alternative.