The Nuances of Pharmaceutical Safety: Two New Arguements

For as long as modern medicine has existed, there have been concerns over the validity and effectiveness of drugs. A recent article published in the United Kingdom highlights this issue and what can be done about it. In an ideal world, all drugs would have randomized, double blind, placebo controlled testing done by creditable institutions prior to be released into the market. Unfortunately, this is not possible nor is it heavily pursued. On the contrary, we have two general classifications in the United States regarding the validity of a given drug, FDA Approved, and unapproved. The existence of this system baffles the mind when considering the complete openness and accessibility of none FDA approved drugs to the market. The availability of unapproved drugs is staggering and reflects on the true lack of government regulation of the health care industry. In a nutshell, an individual could turn a pine cone into powder form, bottle it, and sell it on the open market as a weight loss drug, while only having to take on precaution, labeling the so-called medicine as none-FDA approved.

The first blog highlights the underlying problem in faulty pharmaceutical drugs, which is a lack of quality testing. This issue however, is far more complicated, and he blog does an excellent job of addressing these issues. To begin with, there is a inherent disparity between the goals of an pharmaceutical provider and the means by which quality medicine is produced. Large pharmaceutical firms, like Pfizer, are publicly traded companies, and therefore, the CEO’s have a responsibility to the shareholders to produce the maximum profit possible. This constitutes the ability to rapidly respond to the demands of the market, and in my opinion, control the demands of the market. Unfortunately, almost all of what science stands for, and what ethics demand in the production of quality medicine, is the dismissal of all factors except for the validity of evidence. Pharmaceuticals are obviously complicated in their production, and thus conflict with the goals of the corporations that produce them.

The second blog discusses, among other things, the nuances of the FDA’s approval practices, and the inherent dangers of the seemingly open and unregulated pharmaceutical industry. The major classification between FDA approved and none-approved truly reflects on the capitalistic underpinnings of policy federal government regulation. One can argue that citizens have the “freedom” to choose between approved and none-approved drugs, but the reality is the market is cluttered with medicine that has not passed adequate scientific standards. Despite the fact that an ideal, randomized, double blind, placebo controlled testing process is not possible for every drugs, as discussed in the first blog, we should demand that the production of pharmaceuticals be guided by the highest professional and scientific standards.