Comment by mmooss
1 day ago
Maybe drugs, or these drugs, aren't the most efficient solutions. Shouldn't we direct resources toward more efficient ones?
1 day ago
Maybe drugs, or these drugs, aren't the most efficient solutions. Shouldn't we direct resources toward more efficient ones?
There are a lot of bad health outcomes built into our society, yes, but by the time people are confronted with the health impacts of cars, agriculture subsidies, for-profit healthcare, etc. it is likely that drugs will be necessary to treat the very real, immediate problems which any given patient has. Reversing the subsidies for things like car-dependency would positively benefit millions of people but it’s a generational change, not something most individuals can do.
I agree about the significance of those large-scale changes; still ...
> Reversing the subsidies for things like car-dependency would positively benefit millions of people but it’s a generational change, not something most individuals can do.
Individuals frequently can chose to not use a car, of course. Still, it's not realistic for everyone or all the time, especially in a society built for automobile use.
> by the time people are confronted with the health impacts of cars, agriculture subsidies, for-profit healthcare, etc. it is likely that drugs will be necessary
My point is that there are other treatments for illness. I doubt it's a coincidence that this patentable technology is so relied on in a hyper-capitalist society; other countries with better health outcomes use far fewer pills, iirc. Who will fund the large-scale study that says a valuable pill is unnecessary?
> Individuals frequently can chose to not use a car, of course
To some extent, yes, but my point was that it’s not realistic for many people because we treat walkable neighborhoods like luxuries. If you wake up in your 40s with a bad back and cardio problems because you live in a suburb and drive everywhere, you can’t roll back the clock and build sidewalks, legalize density, or run decent transit and on average don’t have the money to move somewhere dramatically better.
I think a growing number of people, especially younger ones, realize this is unsustainable but it took generations to get here and it’ll take a while to change trajectories, too. If gas prices had stayed high in the seventies that might have gone differently but a huge percentage of American neighborhoods are designed to minimize physical activity and that’s often enforced by law.
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>Maybe drugs, or these drugs, aren't the most efficient solutions. Shouldn't we direct resources toward more efficient ones?
Turns out all the low hanging fruit have already been picked, so the only "more efficient ones" left are stuff like gene therapy, which are absurdly expensive, but still theoretically cheaper than a lifetime of care. Unsurprisingly the high sticker price draws much backlash from the public and politicians.
> all the low hanging fruit have already been picked
What is that based on?
Also, I'm not talking about 'low hanging fruit' necessarily; only solutons that become cost effective for vendors if drug prices aren't so extreme.
There's reason to think there is low-hanging fruit: Research is incentivized for the most profitable solutions for the vendors, not the most cost-effective solutions for patients.
>Also, I'm not talking about 'low hanging fruit' necessarily; only solutons that become cost effective for vendors if drug prices aren't so extreme.
>There's reason to think there is low-hanging fruit: Research is incentivized for the most profitable solutions for the vendors, not the most cost-effective solutions for patients.
High drug prices also mean you can charge more for one-off cures. See, the gene therapy example above.