[geeks] Drug prices (was Re: nVidia 8800GT for Apple Mac Pro)

[Dan Sikorski]

Sandwich Maker wrote:
> " From: Lionel Peterson <lionel4287 at verizon.net>
> " Personally, I'd like to see Pharma's be prevented from advertising
> " drugs to consumers here in teh US. That just makes no sense to me -
> " your Doctor wants to prescribe compound A, but you convince him that
> " you want compound B because you like the ad they ran in Time Magazine?
> " WTF?
>
> agreed.  the info should be available somehow; i've heard of enough
> cases where the patient was more informed than the doctor, but the
> slanted half-truths that pass for advertising should be banned.
>   
I've always figured that the advertisements were targeted to people who 
do not go to the doctor and have problems that new drugs could help with. 

For example, there is a new drug for psoriasis.  Although i have no clue 
what the effectiveness of it is, let's assume for this example that it's 
very effective.  Someone who has psoriasis may have visited the doctor 
several times in their life and never had an effective treatment, or 
never visited a doctor about it because they knew that there were no 
effective treatments.  The advertisement informs this person that there 
is a new treatment available and that they should go talk to their 
doctor about it. 

I can justify the existence of the advertisements this way, but I 
certainly will not defend the misleading nature of a lot of them.  Some 
of the advertisements I've seen don't really seem to indicate what the 
drug is used to treat, they just made it sound like everyone's life 
would be better if they took it, as long as they're willing to live with 
a laundry list of side effects.\\

As far as the patient being more informed than their doctor, that's not 
difficult.  When i have a medical condition, I read as much about it as 
possible.  My general practitioner cannot possibly devote that much time 
to researching the specific conditions of all of his patients.  I expect 
him to have broad knowledge of health conditions and their treatments.  
On the other hand, if i visit a specialist, that is a different story.  
I would expect a specialist to know much more than me about his specific 
area of expertise.

    -Dan Sikorski