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I wish someone would convince RFK that prescription drug ads are bad for his brand of quack medicine. We could at least get rid of that societal cancer while the rest is torn down.
I’ve heard RFK say that it’s hard to ban TV ads for drugs. They are “speech” according to the 1st amendment, or something like that.
Too bad. News broadcasts are full of those ads, and hence TV journalists are loath to investigate the people that pay their salaries.
There's loads of precedent pointing to commercial speech such as marketing as having some specific carve outs on the right to free speech. After all we have limits on tobacco marketing and food labeling requirements.
It’s baffling that TV ads for alcohol and cigarettes are illegal, but pharmaceuticals? That’s free speech!
They were illegal up until quasi recently… mid 90s IIRC. I believe it was right around the time of Viagra - probably not a coincidence.
I wonder if it would be possible to ban visuals on these ads. To allow only text.
It's not and that's bullshit from RFK.
I don't think any convincing is needed.
https://x.com/RobertKennedyJr/status/1793144103800361050
> We are one of only two countries in the world that allow pharmaceutical companies to advertise directly to consumers on television. Not surprisingly, Americans consume more pharmaceutical products than anyone else on the planet.
> As I told @JoePolish, on my first day in office I will issue an executive order banning pharmaceutical advertising on television
Unfortunately, this is probably illegal. See cases like United States v Caronia.
It was a very strange experience once when I was in the US, at a hotel reception, suddenly hearing an advert for a sildenafil drug on TV behind the receptionist.
Why are prescription drug ads bad? Its not like consumers can prescribe or buy it for themselves.
If there is a problem with overconsumption or misuse of prescription drugs isn't the blame on the medical professionals that prescribe them? Ads to the general public seems far down on the list of culprits here.
forget that - suppose ozempic, blood pressure, cholesterol meds were made OTC
I would wager cardiac and arterial disease would plummet.
Reading "Bottle of Lies" by Katherine Eban, I'd argue that the collapse of the FDA was well underway before the current administration. The FDA was completely unable to regulate overseas drug manufacturers, resulting in many, many problems. Sincere attempts to inspect overseas drug makers with random inspections universally results in shutdowns, which cause politically unpopular drug shortages, making enforcement politically difficult.
That seems more like an "underfunded and underjurisdictioned" problem for a portion of what they do, rather than collapse of the agency.
Sooo that sounds like there's a whole lot of ways for it to get way, way, way worse.
The existence of problems does not imply there cannot be more plentiful, more diverse, and more severe problems in the near future.
The 2018 valsartan recall is a perfect example of this - an overseas manufacturer's nitrosamine contamination went undetected for years despite theoretical oversight, affecting millions of patients.
Chiron: 2004, the UK government shut down their flu vax plant (it was in the UK). It later came out that the FDA knew what was up and basically let it slide. It was one of the early ani-vax movements torches... Crunchy moms pissed about shots for kids and parents on Oxycodone were not happy with Pharma (or corporations in general: Enron etc..)
> politically unpopular drug shortages ...
Ask your ADHD friends about how they get their meds.
One side wants to keep it, the other side wants to get rid of it. No one wants to fix the problem.
That just means the FDA was restricted. The FDA is fine. The people funding the FDA are not.
Worth reminding everyone that, on top of pharma and food, the FDA also regulates medical devices.
Insufficient regulation both on approval _and_ inspection of medical devices (thinking surgical applications and implantables for example) is as impactful on patient safety as drugs.
The damage to U.S. government safety institutions by the current administration may be significant, from faulty pacemakers and cancer-inducing scanning machines to disabled babies and Ebola.
It’s not some temporary thing where we can just raise awareness and then people will vote them out of office next time. The changes that have been made affect the ability for those opposing to win the next election, and even if they were to, the checks and balances have gone.
At this point, unless you plan to work to undo it long-term, you could accept that our society will be quickly devolving maybe 100-150 years or more.
In the past, opportunity abounded in fake science, magical thinking, weird products, dirty industry, manual labor, inequity, and brutish behavior.
If they want to outlaw processed foods and we all start eating flavorless thick hard biscuits of grain and beans and less-than-stellar-looking fruits and vegetables, it’ll probably be better for my mental and physical health.
However, that may be offset by my teeth rotting from lack of fluoride and getting cancer and intestinal problems from lack of regulation. And the death, disease, and disablement will overshadow the fear and excitement from street fights, arcing electrical devices, dangerous bubbling chemicals, planes falling from the sky, things exploding, medicine shows, and AI whorehouses.
NeuralLink is suddenly going to get a miraculous green light for broad human trials hey
I used to work for that branch. They'd joke it's the FDDA. Paid peanuts but I learned a lot and had a great boss (who showed up to my house one day unannounced to gift me the Art of Programming because I said I didn't have a copy months prior).
Also "medical device" is a broader term than most people realize. For instance: a blood draw or tissue biopsy, followed by DNA sequencing, followed by data analysis, leading to a report for personalized cancer treatment.
There are serious cyber security implications too.
A recent discovery was a heart rate monitor used in hospitals that sent all data, including full patient details, to Chinese servers, and would accept arbitrary code updates from said servers.
If you wanted to kill a diplomat, muting or spoofing heart rate data while they have a cardiac event in hospital would be a very sneaky way to do it.
The FDA's creation was directly triggered by multiple mass poisoning incidents in the early 1900s.In 1937 over 100 people died from diethylene glycol-contaminated medicine, leading to the 1938 Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act that significantly expanded FDA authority.
As the adage goes, "regulations are written in blood". The problem is the blood was spent before many people can remember (or bother to remember). They just know the "limitations" imposed by those regulations and therefore want to get them removed.
And if they had stuck with making sure medicine sold is exactly what it says on the bottle instead of expanding to telling me which medications I am allowed to have, I would be their biggest supporter.
So it's Chesterton's Fence then.
My concern is that today this could happen and people wouldn’t care. Peoples cultlike ideologies, political tribalism, and belief systems are more important to them. There was a father whose child died of measles in Texas who continues to be anti vax.
Reject modernity. Return to the old ways
Pity the old ways are
> You’ve died of dysentery
It really feels like the US is a failed state at this point, but it just hasn’t had full impact yet. Not really sure how all this destruction (in only half a year!) can be reversed in any meaningful timeframe in the future.
Vinay Prasad, the new FDA chief medical and scientific director, is an extremely sensible guy and a co-author of a great 2013 book on evidence-based medicine targeting the lay audience (Ending Medical Reversal)
Here's an EconTalk podcast with the other co-author, Adam Cifu, talking about the book. https://www.econtalk.org/adam-cifu-on-ending-medical-reversa...
The NYT article presents his COVID vaccine policy changes as yet more crazy MAGA shit, whereas in fact he holds nuanced views, based on up-to-date review of available evidence. He has published in NEJM and elsewhere on the topic:
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMsb2506929
A short take on the above from Adam Cifu, whom I respect greatly: https://www.sensible-med.com/p/prasad-makary-and-an-evidence...
With all of that, I suspect that the rumours of FDA's death are greatly exaggerated.
Huh? That NEJM bit is crazy MAGA shit. It admits that if you're in a high risk group you should get it, but then turns around and says that because it hasn't been proven in every sub-group it shouldn't be done for the rest of the population. That makes no sense, it's just p-hacking in reverse.
And it completely ignores the long covid elephant.
“FDA’s war on public health is about to end,” Kennedy wrote. “This includes its aggressive suppression of psychedelics, peptides, stem cells, raw milk, hyperbaric therapies, chelating compounds, ivermectin, hydroxychloroquine, vitamins, clean foods, sunshine, exercise, nutraceuticals and anything else that advances human health and can’t be patented by Pharma."
Anyone know what chelating compounds he is talking about?
He mentions clean foods, but the Trump EPA is protecting corporations from regulations more than its protecting citizens from pollution.
It's about EDTA. It can be legitimately used to treat heavy metal poisoning, plus some other things. Some people (who are probably misguided) want to self-medicate. The FDA won't let you. Hence, drama.
I find this quote so fascinating. Who makes ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine? Pharma companies! Who makes vitamins and supplements? Massive corporations! Is there a single doctor on the planet who doesn't tell their patients that sunshine and exercise are good for them?
The raw milk thing is funny to me in a semi-morbid way i guess, i find it for sale all over the place and more expensive then just regular, even organic, whole milk. Pasteurization doesn't seem to be some evil ultra-processing of milk, it just kills bacteria that can make you sick. There's no preservative or other additives that i'm aware of. Pasteurization just doesn't seem like something anyone would get worked up about but here we are.
"We do our peers, countrymen, students, and children a grave disservice by admonishing them to think for themselves without also giving them the critical thinking tools to do so, for in so doing we foster a culture where "independent thought" is equated with "contrarian thought". This gives rise to an anti-intellectual, anti-science paradigm that supports an idea not because it meets a basic standard of evidence, but rather simply because it opposes established thought. This is worse than the intellectual calcification that stagnant "herd thinking" would give rise to, because it doesn't simply halt progress — it puts it in full retreat."
The one thing I liked about RFK is that he was going to "take on" the big food conglomerates and all the garbage that they are feeding Americans especially those unable to afford, or who do not have easy access to, healthy alternatives (whereas the garbage food is ubiquitous).
It would seem dismantling the FDA is the opposite of that; what's needed are more regulations on food, or at least policies that result in more healthy food being available and affordable to Americans, not less regulation.
Destruction precedes creation. Things have ossified to the point where change seems impossible. While I think the way we’ve gone about it is absurd, I can still hope that something better will replace it.
i know this is a very political thing now but i've had friends (smart phd people who work industry) very annoyed at the fda for many years, and maybe this collapse is good!
the fda started with a noble mission but they've been getting heavy handed. or better cliched - slow handed with getting things certified.
you can solve this one or two ways: drop regulation or increase staffing.
so many institutions have unnecessary fluff, tremendous red tape (why do i need environmental review to stick a shed in my backyard??), our modern lives have too much regulation.
let's hope for the best.
the old system is holding back drugs.. there should have been more ozempics, more breakthroughs had the fda not been so slow. companies have a strong incentive not release bad drugs now.. lawyers are not cheap and law firms know money can be made.. it's not the 1930s anymore.. (okay it's still the 1930s in certain places of the world, that's a criticism)
typing this out hoping to convince any regulation reduction is good reduction, i thought of a third fda option: the fda let's everyone go hog wild initially but looks at the top consumed products and checks them for safety and efficacy each year.
> why do i need environmental review to stick a shed in my backyard??
Because cowboys make cowboy decisions, which leads to loss of lives.
"We're going to build on a flood plane, don't worry we've put in protection" turns out they didnt and the things they did made the flooding worse.
> companies have a strong incentive not release bad drugs now
Given that fentanyl exists and managed to get through, and was widely prescribed by doctors, and the whole industry setup to encourage prescription, I think thats not really true. Its not even like its that effective as a pain relief (https://www.bjanaesthesia.org/article/S0007-0912(17)37428-7/...)
If you would give a balanced PoV you would not only count the good drugs that could have been, but also list all the bad ones that were fortunately prevented from being released on the public. If you only list one side, your argument is missing something essential. Loosening regulations has an effect not only on drugs that turn out to be very net positive, we will also see more bad ones. Now I'm just waiting for someone to point out that all we need is perfect regulation that exactly lets through all the good ones and filters all the bad ones....
People tend to be annoyed by things they interact with frequently.
I get annoyed by web development, but I wouldn't want to see the solution be a federally mandated burning to the ground of the HTML standard.
This perspective is addressed in the article... TLDR; that doesn't seem to be where this is going.