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WHO List of Essential Medicines
- ANDREWB0SE 5y agoNo albuterol? Terrible list.
- treebog 5y agoIt’s there under the name Salbutamol
- bntyhntr 5y agoWhat is albuterol? Why does not having it render the entire list terrible? Could you elaborate in a way that inspires useful discourse?
- Baeocystin 5y agoIt's a front-line medicine used for the treatment of asthma and COPD. As your sibling comment notes, it's on the list, just under its generic name. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salbutamol https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salbutamol
- thrdbndndn 5y agoAlbuterol is also a generic name, just that it's USAN and different from INN.
- ics 5y ago> Albuterol is used to prevent and treat wheezing, difficulty breathing, chest tightness, and coughing caused by lung diseases such as asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD; a group of diseases that affect the lungs and airways). Albuterol is in a class of medications called bronchodilators. It works by relaxing and opening the air passages to the lungs to make breathing easier. From https://medlineplus.gov/druginfo/meds/a607004.html https://medlineplus.gov/druginfo/meds/a607004.html
- sn_master 5y agoDoesn't make it terrible, but I think Clonidine and Hydrocodone/acetaminophen should have been there too.
- sudosysgen 5y agoAcetaminophen is there under the equivalent name Paracetamol.
- isatty 5y agoI’m guessing that clonidine didn’t make it because it’s not pregnancy safe (yes there are probably tons of those on the list).
- petercooper 5y agoI think it's also because it treats things for which there are safer alternatives on the list (especially for reducing blood pressure).
- spikengineer 5y agoIt's actually called Paracetamol in the rest of the world except USA. It's in the list.
- bentpins 5y agoIf you're curious what categories they fit into here's Wikipedia's list https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WHO_Model_List_of_Essential_Medicines https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WHO_Model_List_of_Essential_Me...
- RobertRoberts 5y agoAn once of prevention is worth a pound of cure. How can we make money selling this idea?
- sn_master 5y agoMost cancers cannot be prevented, they're genetic. Other diseases that can be prevented (obesity, smoking-related), require long-term media campaigns, cannot all of a sudden change people behavior. We have free will.
- sebmellen 5y agoEven if “most” cancers are genetic (do you have a source on that?) they absolutely can be prevented. For example, people with a family history of colon cancer can get colonoscopy screenings to check for polyps. Same goes for people with BRCA2, etc. And environmental factors play a gigantic role in the prevalence of cancer today.
- inter_netuser 5y agoCancers are failure of immunosurveillance. Yes, some genetic factors increase risks, but even in those cases cancers tend to show up after the age 40, when your immune system begins to falter due to thymus involution. At that point - everyone has some cancerous cells in their body, and often even multiple tumors. If you live long enough - you WILL gets some sort of a cancer. From a good pool of autopsies: 1.1 per patient. "There were 250 malignancies diagnosed in 225 patients, an average of 1.1 malignancies per patient. The average age of all patients autopsied was 48.3 years (range, 1-98 years)." doi:10.1001/jama.280.14.1245
- adrianN 5y agoIncentivize people by reducing health insurance premiums when they take part in appropriate preventative activities.
- vidyesh 5y agoPlease elaborate.
- malandrew 5y agoLast time I checked, every item one this list developed since the year 2000 was developed entirely or mostly in the US except one which was developed in Japan. Would love it if anyone knows if this is still the case as it wasn’t trivial for me to figure this out the one time I researched this.
- czzr 5y agoWhere would you say the Pfizer COVID vaccine was developed?
- bartvk 5y agoI've got a weird case here in The Netherlands about mebendazole. These are pills that kill intestinal parasites, which is important for my child who is at the age where they touch everything and anything, and then suck their thumb. Mebendazole has been sold out for about half a year now. I had two strips stashed away, and I needed those for my child. Only last week, I could buy new ones.
- thepangolino 5y agoIt’s one of the drugs that is said to be useful in treating COVID. https://www.utsouthwestern.edu/newsroom/articles/year-2020/three-approved-drugs-can-curb-covid-19-virus-replication.html https://www.utsouthwestern.edu/newsroom/articles/year-2020/t...
- djb_hackernews 5y agoInteresting. Are you using it prophylactically? Is this common in The Netherlands?
- bartvk 5y agoNo, perhaps my wording was unclear. It's an on-demand thing. The kid complains about itchiness, I give her a pill.
- RadixDLT 5y agoany of them good?
- alister 5y agoEven outside of WHO's list, the number of prescription drugs in existence is surprisingly low. People might imagine there are "millions" of drugs. But it seems to be in the ballpark of ~600 based on looking at: - items in the Compendium of Pharmaceuticals and Specialties (Canada) or the United States Pharmacopeia - number of Drug Identification Numbers (DIN) (Canada) or National Drug Codes (NDC) (USA) - how many SKUs a large pharmacy has (when I asked a pharmacist) The WHO Model List of Essential Medicines gives just 460 medicines, by the way. The drug manufacturers give basic drugs different names depending on the country or market, or combine basic drugs in combo pills with new names, and make extended release versions and whatnot. Therefore we have the perception that there is much more variety than there really is. EDIT: The FDA has approved 1,453 drugs in its entire history[1] but it's not clear how many were withdrawn or are no longer marketed. [1] https://www.raps.org/regulatory-focus%E2%84%A2/news-articles/2014/10/how-many-drugs-has-fda-approved-in-its-entire-history-new-paper-explains https://www.raps.org/regulatory-focus%E2%84%A2/news-articles...
- hungryforcodes 5y ago"There are over 20,000 prescription drug products approved for marketing." https://www.fda.gov/about-fda/fda-basics/fact-sheet-fda-glance https://www.fda.gov/about-fda/fda-basics/fact-sheet-fda-glan...
- alister 5y ago> "There are over 20,000 prescription drug products approved for marketing." But how does that square with the claim that the FDA has approved 1,453 drugs in its entire history? I wonder what they mean by drug products? I'm guessing that the FDA Fact Sheet you found is counting every combo pill, extended release or sustained release form, oral vs injectible vs suppository formulation, and maybe even different dosages as different drug products. Whereas the paper mentioning 1,453 drugs is counting only new molecular entities.
- hungryforcodes 5y agoIt could be, I agree. The numbers from your article seem low to me, but of course I'm not an expert. Also drugs aren't just discovered in the US, so world wide it's surely more.
- cout 5y agoInteresting that ranitidine is still on the list, given the concerns about NDMA. I wonder if it will be removed in the future, and what the recommended replacement will be.
- xattt 5y agoOral ranitidine is the issue. IV ranitidine is still fine.
- MrDrDr 5y agoWhile I support the WHO and its efforts to provide standardised information - this attempt fall too short to be useful. It would not have taken much to provide a little more meta-data for this to be far more useful. In the UK we have a SNOMED extension (dm+d) for medicines and some great work has been done here: https://openprescribing.net/dmd/ https://openprescribing.net/dmd/
- teachingassist 5y agoThe Essential Medicines list has a very clear purpose, which it satisfies. It states what medicines are essential - to give an indication of what minimum preparations can to be made (by states) for these to be stocked and affordable. But, it's not intended as a dictionary/classification system. It's not intended to be a comprehensive list of medicines available in the UK. That's for the UK to decide. This list was not made for you (nor anyone else commenting negatively in this thread). It doesn't fit your purpose, and that's fine.
- MrDrDr 5y agoI'll respectively disagree that it provides a list of medicines. It provides a list of 'Chemical agents', their ideal form and dose. My point is the over generalisation of these lists. Behind each chemical is an actual product that has actually been licensed to use in a specific jurisdiction and the indications for which it is licensed. This gap between the general and the 'actual' is one of the main reasons medicines health data is so difficult to share and these ambiguities can be dangerous. To your point that it does not fit my purpose - I agree. But what purpose does this list serve? Who is the 'user' of such a general list?
- adontz 5y agoIt includes condoms, which means my definition of essential is quite different from WHO's one. Honestly, not that I really had one, but I expected something like "Medicines we need to prevent humans from extinction", while it obviously includes more than that.
- o_m 5y agoIsn't prevention of AIDS a way to prevent humans from extinction?
- orra 5y agoHealth organization usually aim a little higher than “avoid extinction”. Paracetamol is on the list, for example, because people in pain need painkillers. It can also reduce a fever, altho that said, a normal fever is beneficial albeit unpleasant.
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- petercooper 5y agoIt includes things which treat conditions humans typically present with (which could well be caused by them - such as unsafe sex, drug overdose, etc.) - it's not just a minimum list for an 'ideal' group that abstains from all unnecessary or unsafe activity.
- ultrastable 5y agomethadone is on the list but buprenorphine isn't... the WHO needs to step up
- inter_netuser 5y agoIt is not essential as it has cheaper substitute - which is methadone. Lots of newer and expensive medications are not on the list. e.g. not that many antibodies although they could mean life or death for cancer patients.
- simonh 5y agoJust to add it's not just about expense directly, but mainly about supply. There's no point putting a new medication, even a very effective and life saving one, on a list of essential medicines if the supply pipeline could not come close to meeting global scale demand.
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- ultrastable 5y agoyeah you're both right, I just hope supply & cost get to a point where methadone can be replaced w/ buprenorphine whenever necessary. could save a lot of lives
- riversflow 5y agoWhats wrong with Methadone?
- ultrastable 5y agonothing, it's just that buprenorphine has certain advantages that it lacks: because it's a partial agonist, it causes less respiratory depression/is much harder to overdose on/you can safely titrate it faster; high receptor affinity means it largely blocks the action of other opioids (to the extent that it can be used to reverse overdose https://ccforum.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13054-020-2740-y https://ccforum.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13054-02...), longer half-life at high doses so you can maintain smoother levels/administer it less frequently. this is more speculative but it also seems to have an antidepressant effect, & in general I think it's less harmful to cognition & mood than other opioids incl. methadone. doesn't work better than methadone for everyone but availability issues mean we're still not at the point where that decision can always be made on a purely clinical basis
- varispeed 5y agoIt saddens me that there is no medical cannabis on the list. This medication is life changing for many people suffering from chronic diseases. That begs the question whether the list is genuine. If medical cannabis is not included, what else isn't? Pain medication is one of the biggest money maker for big pharma, so they work hard to keep it that way by corrupting anyone in power to change that.
- RobertKerans 5y agoDue to status, a. there is no huge global demand and b. large-scale global supply of medicinal cannabis is flat out impossible. And I'm not saying that's a good state of affairs, but it can't go on a list of essential medicines that need global availability because it's clearly not essential and not globally available. Also, calling some BS on the big pharma conspiracy stuff w/r/t cannabis/cannaboids. Sure, when there wasn't a prevailing wind they're going to lobby for anti-drug laws, but now in the US, South America etc. there is. They can't really be amoral money grabbers if they start ignoring the money -- if "they" (as some bloc) are what you're saying, then what, they're not going to not bother with cannabis-derived pain relief drug research?
- varispeed 5y agoI'd say the supply is purely artificial problem. If the medicine was mandated as essential, the supply issue would have been solved within a year. I am sure that in many countries or jurisdictions it was possible to beat big pharma lobby (for example in the US by direct ballot initiatives), however, there are countries where big pharma is actively blocking adoption of this medicine because in case of chronic pain, one of the major money makers, they risk losing a good chunk of profits. Here in the UK senior doctors (that happen to be shareholders or involved in others ways with those companies) lie public in the face that there is no evidence medical cannabis actually works and block any routes for prescriptions to be available on the NHS.
- taneq 5y ago> large-scale global supply of medicinal cannabis is flat out impossible Just because of legal issues or is there some logistical issue? I can't imagine it's any harder to commercialize than tobacco and left unchecked that was huge.
- pWFk41mFfie1NOd 5y agoNotable entries on this list include Ivermectin and Hydroxychloroquine.