Something to be considered

[WiccanLiberal]

I watched a PBS Frontline episode last night on netflix. It's title is Hunting the Nightmare Bacteria. Anyone who has access to netflix or a PBS website that has the video should watch it. It is an excellent treatment of why we are all in the middle of a health disaster that has nothing to do with whether or not we have insurance. We are in a post antibiotic world. The film covers three cases. One is a young girl who ended up needing a lung transplant. The next a missionary in India who had a leg amputated because of trauma and brought the first instance of a resistant, species crossing gene to America. Finally they address the outbreak that almost closed the NIH to admissions. It is estimated that more Americans die of resistant bugs every year than of AIDS and the number is growing. Why don't we know? because the deaths are not labeled that way. And it gets worse. Many drug companies are getting out of the business of developing new antibiotics as it isn't cost effective for them. All of us at some time will need to deal with some infection. Educate yourselves and be proactive in choosing whether or not you want to use the antibiotics or not. If you do so choose, take the entire course. A major part of being a nurse is educating health consumers about their risks and options. Hope this is useful.

[Abbey Marie]

I watched a PBS Frontline episode last night on netflix. It's title is Hunting the Nightmare Bacteria. Anyone who has access to netflix or a PBS website that has the video should watch it. It is an excellent treatment of why we are all in the middle of a health disaster that has nothing to do with whether or not we have insurance. We are in a post antibiotic world. The film covers three cases. One is a young girl who ended up needing a lung transplant. The next a missionary in India who had a leg amputated because of trauma and brought the first instance of a resistant, species crossing gene to America. Finally they address the outbreak that almost closed the NIH to admissions. It is estimated that more Americans die of resistant bugs every year than of AIDS and the number is growing. Why don't we know? because the deaths are not labeled that way. And it gets worse. Many drug companies are getting out of the business of developing new antibiotics as it isn't cost effective for them. All of us at some time will need to deal with some infection. Educate yourselves and be proactive in choosing whether or not you want to use the antibiotics or not. If you do so choose, take the entire course. A major part of being a nurse is educating health consumers about their risks and options. Hope this is useful.


That is majorly scary.

As for the bolded, in our lawsuit-crazy culture, I think we will hear this with more and more drugs.

[WiccanLiberal]

That is majorly scary.

As for the bolded, in our lawsuit-crazy culture, I think we will hear this with more and more drugs.

According to the drug company spokeperson, it's not about lawsuits. It's math. It costs about a billion dollars to bring a new drug to market. The costs are recovered by sales. If you develop a cholesterol or BP drug, you can reasonably expect it will still be in use and making you money in 50 years and being used daily and long term by patients. Antibiotics are used short term - ten days or so on average - and have a short life in another way. As bacteria develop resistance, a great many antibiotics have fallen out of use. The companies cannot make enough money to justify the R&D costs to their shareholders.

[Gunny]

I watched a PBS Frontline episode last night on netflix. It's title is Hunting the Nightmare Bacteria. Anyone who has access to netflix or a PBS website that has the video should watch it. It is an excellent treatment of why we are all in the middle of a health disaster that has nothing to do with whether or not we have insurance. We are in a post antibiotic world. The film covers three cases. One is a young girl who ended up needing a lung transplant. The next a missionary in India who had a leg amputated because of trauma and brought the first instance of a resistant, species crossing gene to America. Finally they address the outbreak that almost closed the NIH to admissions. It is estimated that more Americans die of resistant bugs every year than of AIDS and the number is growing. Why don't we know? because the deaths are not labeled that way. And it gets worse. Many drug companies are getting out of the business of developing new antibiotics as it isn't cost effective for them. All of us at some time will need to deal with some infection. Educate yourselves and be proactive in choosing whether or not you want to use the antibiotics or not. If you do so choose, take the entire course. A major part of being a nurse is educating health consumers about their risks and options. Hope this is useful.

Think YOU got problems? I'm having to watch Elmo. Needs his head ripped off.

[WiccanLiberal]

Think YOU got problems? I'm having to watch Elmo. Needs his head ripped off.
My sister used the Bob Ross painting show on PBS when her kids were little. Something about the man's voice always seemed to make the little boogers sleep.

[Black Diamond]

Think YOU got problems? I'm having to watch Elmo. Needs his head ripped off.

What? No Barney?

[Abbey Marie]

According to the drug company spokeperson, it's not about lawsuits. It's math. It costs about a billion dollars to bring a new drug to market. The costs are recovered by sales. If you develop a cholesterol or BP drug, you can reasonably expect it will still be in use and making you money in 50 years and being used daily and long term by patients. Antibiotics are used short term - ten days or so on average - and have a short life in another way. As bacteria develop resistance, a great many antibiotics have fallen out of use. The companies cannot make enough money to justify the R&D costs to their shareholders.
...



A couple of articles' excerpts.


...
Pharmaceutical companies, for example, are well aware of the consequences of imperfection and the costs involved: any drug that is pulled from the market because of unanticipated side effects leads to extremely costly lawsuits and a sharp fall in share prices. Clearly, flaws in the design and analysis of clinical trials cause some of these failures and, in this regard, legal actions have improved trial design and led to safer drugs. However, some side effects cannot realistically be anticipated in clinical trials, no matter how good their design, and can only be detected once the drug is used by a sufficiently large and diverse group of patients.
The threatening spectre of punitive lawsuits is slowly affecting the whole system of pharmaceutical research and drug development. Companies carry out careful analyses to plot potential profits from a new product against potential losses through lawsuits because a new drug always has some risk of side effects.
...

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2373381/



With hundreds of thousands of people claiming that they have been injured by dangerous medicines and deserve compensation, the drug makers say that they are now spending several billion dollars each year to defend themselves from lawsuits and settle claims.
The new wave of lawsuits has come at a difficult time for the companies, which face heavy pressure over drug prices and accusations that they abuse patents to keep less-expensive generic competitors off the market.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/18/us/trial-lawyers-are-now-focusing-on-lawsuits-against-drug-makers.html?pagewanted=1

[Voted4Reagan]

http://www.debatepolicy.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=7739&stc=1