[lbo-talk] Doug Henwood's Critique of Gary Null

[JBrown72073 at cs.com]

>Another thing to note is the extent to which good scientific procedure
>is distorted by capitalism in the development of drugs: there is a 
>lengthy, rigorous trial process drugs are supposed to go through, and 
>some (I'm not sure what percentage) are in fact put through it, but 
>others, as is well known, are not, presumably to up the profits of the
>company in question, leading to embarassingly high adverse event rates
>after they are put on the market. In a capitalist society, there is 
>always a tug-of-war between science and profit.

Public Citizen's Health Research Group, which does a great service with their 
Worst Pills/Best Pills book and website, promotes a 5-year rule--don't take 
any medicine that hasn't been on the market for at least 5 years, since many 
drugs are withdrawn because of adverse effects in the first 5 years or found to 
have unforeseen side effects and interactions which the FDA may eventually 
force them to make public.  For example, two friends of mine were recently put on 
a new birth control pill, Yasmin, which has no advantage over the dozens of 
other birth control pills on the market but did earn a "Do Not Take" 
designation from Public Citizen due to alarming cases of blood clots among women, some 
of whom had been taking it only a few weeks.  Another example of that 
innovation we're always hearing capitalism is so good for.

Jenny Brown