|
|
|
Two drugs – Pondimin and Phentermine were approved by doctors as a weight loss drug, but they were never approved to be used jointly to control obesity. So, you see, doctors have always used their own decisions as to combination uses and so it became the infamous Fen Phen.
The combined drugs were pulled from the market when it was discovered that the drug was responsible for an alarmingly high and deadly substance and was causing defects to heart valves causing primary pulmonary hypertension. As a result thousands have flocked to attorneys to file against the maker, American Home Products (Wyeth).
If it has never occurred or been on the upper floor of your thinking processes let me suggest this: when it comes to passing out medicines just who is in control and responsible?
Physicians can't do it all. They have felt and wisely at one time, that the scientists should be dependable in that regard because the doctor can guarantee his knowledge and skill for just so much.
Salesmen of pharmaceuticals must be knowledgeable regarding the drugs and the company he represents but is he also to set up a school in each doctor's office and give him a course on every new drug? No doctor has the time or much background. He is reasonably certain that the maker has hired reliable salesmen. But even with a crash course how can a doctor know the precise drug to prescribe. So for practical purposes we'll let the physicians off the hook.
Salesmen aren't chemists although I believe they need some knowledge of the effects of combining chemicals. Since we want to be reasonable let's assume their employer sees to a comprehensive training course for the salesperson and thus we get the seller off the hook.
This brings us directly to the scientists who work for the pharmaceutical companies. Again we will trust in their honesty, when they get to using all the bubbling cauldrons of their concoctions, that all is pure and used as they should be. By that, we get the makers of drugs off the hook.
Who is left? The FDA. The questions we must ask here are: Is everyone a thoroughly trained scientist? Have they thoroughly tested the products or is that the manufacturers job? Are there ingredients hazardous to a patient's health? Do they take the proper time, read the proper ingredients list, and agree with each and every drop in the drug to make it do its job, or are they a few ingredients that the FDA isn't too sure about but “it shouldn't hurt” anyway? Are they in cahoots with pharmaceutical companies and approving of most everything presented?
Conclusion: physicians should be more ruthless in giving out prescriptions and not let their patients tell them their job. He and he alone studied and interned for half of his young life to obtain the right to make such judgments. The only problem: the patient can easily find another doctor who will give him what he asks for.
The salesman of drugs are just exactly that, salesmen. He can only venture forth with such recommendations as his employer company has given him. The pharmaceutical company needs to stop being so greedy which is displayed in all the hundreds of millions they set aside for the inevitable lawsuits when first they offer the drugs.
Perhaps that way people would stop demanding for every minor ache and pain. Perhaps doctor's liability insurance would become more manageable. Perhaps private health insurance premiums would allow people to take care of their families and put food on the table at the same time. And perhaps a trip to the ER to suture a one stitch cut on the thumb wouldn't seem like paying the national debt.
Another Pondimin Phentermine Article
|
|
|
Like us? Then Link to Us
|
