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The Problems With Drug Testing
gallifreyan99 writes: Every drug you take will have been tested on people before it—but that testing process is meant to be tightly controlled, for the safety of everyone involved. Two investigations document the questionable methods used in many studies, and the lack of oversight the FDA seems to have over the process. First, drugs are increasingly being tested on homeless, destitute and mentally ill people. Second, it turns out many human trials are being run by doctors who have had their licenses revoked for drug addiction, malpractice and worse.
I don't mind non-invasive drug tests being done by non licensed doctors, but testing drugs should definitely handled by licensed docs.
This whackadoodle crap is the quality reporting we now get on Slashdot.
Have the test subject read a Slashdot summary. If it makes sense, the subject is on drugs!
Well, you passed the drug test, but I'm going to fire you anyway. Reason for firing is...you took a drug test.
What does this story have to do with Linux?
I have never, and will never, submit to a drug test. In fact, in the past decade, every single time I have been on the hunt for a new job and on the phone with an HR person, I have been silently practicing my vitriolic rant should they ask.
As of yet, nobody has asked, so nobody has gotten my rant.
People who get paid to piss in a cup for someone elses amusement are called prostitutes, and honstly, I have nothing against honest prostitutes; its only the ones who delude themselves into thinking they are something else that I take issue with.
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
First, drugs are increasingly being tested on homeless, destitute and mentally ill people.
Name another group of the population willing to be guinea pigs for experimental medication? Prison inmates also comes to mind but not much else.
Second, it turns out many human trials are being run by doctors who have had their licenses revoked for drug addiction, malpractice and worse.
It's the American Dream to have made mistakes but to venture out into new avenues. Is one condemned for life not to at least use some of the talents acquired through years of school and experience just because they fell down! If not we're condemning people to a life of servitude at Walmart or 7-11 when they could be serving a useful purpose like pushing through drug test results.
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
I have never, and will never, submit to a drug test. In fact, in the past decade, every single time I have been on the hunt for a new job and on the phone with an HR person, I have been silently practicing my vitriolic rant should they ask.
As of yet, nobody has asked, so nobody has gotten my rant.
People who get paid to piss in a cup for someone elses amusement are called prostitutes, and honstly, I have nothing against honest prostitutes; its only the ones who delude themselves into thinking they are something else that I take issue with.
just pull a hobby lobby and say I'm on a drug that is part of my religion and you can't test me for it.
You gotta break a few eggs. And this doesn't sound like computer stuff. Fuck you slashdot.
Unlicensed doc: "The police called about a murderous drug-fueled rampage. Who did you say that test subject #37 was?"
Assistant: "Abby someone."
Doc: "Abby who?"
Assistant: "Abby... Normal."
This is an outrage and a waste. We must switch to testing on the successful and the smart, who have nothing else to contribute anyway!
Sure, malpractice, drug addiction and, especially, the unspecified "worse" are known to cause people to quickly forget all the training they've ever received in the medical school, and all the practice they got before losing their license.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Look, none of this is common place. It's very rare. Why? Because if this happens, then the multi-million dollar trial you paid for is worthless and would have to be redone. I'm working on setup of the data handling for a phase 1 clinical trial right now and there is no way in hell we would let a doctor with issues (ethical or otherwise) anywhere near the trial. Any data they collect would be suspect and could not be used. Homeless person that is taking a lot of meds already? I don't think so. I don't want to deal with trying to figure out which drug was doing what. Ideally, they would only be on our drug or a placebo (sugar pill), nothing else. Bottom Line: There is just too much money tied up in an already risky clinical trial to not do it right.
testing drugs is monotonous, time consuming work normally outsourced to college grad students. When these arent available, or are unwilling to accept such a droll assignment as part of their education, the task can and certainly is reassigned to members of the medical community desparate to regain good standing. Test subjects are often compensated at a level only seen as commensurate to an audience of the destitute. $250 to test a drug that at its worst can kill you, is quite a bargain for someone who hasnt seen shelter or a hot meal in a month. Finally, the nature of the drug generally has to be questioned.
In many countries Americas "breakthrough" drugs are categorically refused on the ground that they do no more than placebo, and are sometimes just too god damn dangerous. In the united states, all a pharmaceutical company needs to do is essentially demonstrate an overall level of safety, not the effectiveness of a given prescription drug to ensure its acceptance in the market. That drug is then paradoxically marketed directly to the public. Everything from asthma medication to narcotics for chronic pain and insomnia are presented to the end user and the question duly raised to them, "Ask your doctor is $DRUG is right/ok/good for you." The commercial is then interlaced with a laundry list of side-effects and dangerous if not outright fatal complications that can develop as a result of using the particular drug being marketed. Results from drug tests and studies are sometimes mentioned, but are always downplayed as "a small number of" or "users may rarely" in describing what exactly could come about as a negative consequence of using a particular drug. We dont test drugs to make sure theyre safe. We test them to make sure their safe enough not to damage the ROI and marketability of a drug by introducing too many outright fatal or debilitating side effects.
Good people go to bed earlier.
My dad almost lost both of his legs because his doctor insisted that his condition is so severe that he needs experimental medication. The 1st round of medication did nothing to make him better. After he started the 2nd round of medications i got hold of the paperwork that he fscking doctor had my dad to sign. She was doing experiments on him on behalf of a US company and had my dad fooled that it's the only way. So after years of my dad lining in excruciating pain i dragged him to another doctor, at another hospital, who applied a standard medical procedure and he was fixed in 2 months.
The murderous doctor (while my dad was in the hospital, there were at least 2 other patients on experimental medication who died) was sporting a nice new BMW high-end car when i got my dad out of there. Way more expensive that she could have afforded from her salary + standard bribes extorted from the patients.
1% APY, No fees, Online Bank https://captl1.co/2uIErYq Don't let your $$$ sit in a no-interest acct.
So my mother has a Ph.D in experimental psychology and knows a thing or two about how to design experiments, how to avoid systematic bias, how to distinguish that from random error, and in the admittedly non-objective opinion of her son, is quite sharp about identifying sources of those in methodologies. After raising three children she tries to restart her career. At first the only work she could find was a lowly temp job entering survey responses from a drug trial into a database. Turns out that the forms completed by the doctors and patients surveyed left answers to many questions blank. So how is she instructed by those managing the data entry to handle those cases? She is told to systematically select particular answers to particular questions. And which answers? The answers consistent with the drug being effective and harmless.
Now you do not have to be a Ph.D. to spot a problem with that. Hell, my German Shepherd could probably do that. But maybe as a scientist herself the violation of scientific integrity stung too strongly and my mother insistently raised complaints within the company. And how far did those go to correct the "mistaken" guidelines for data entry? Absolutely nowhere.
Ceci n'est pas une signature.
If you have insights to share about the quality of reporting at Medium.com, you've failed to convey them, so your post just reads as "Derp."
That's how many people (mostly children) have died of malaria since the investigators knew they had a working vaccine in the mid-90's.
That vaccine might actually see the light of day this year, but the regulators are hinting that they might deny approval because it's not tremendously effective in infants.
Because, you know, IN FUCKING THEORY, somebody might get injured from the vaccine.
I'm sorry, the blood of ten million mostly-children on the hands of regulators gets me a bit worked up. And now they're staring at their naval because an investigator might also have a drinking problem? Oh, man, I better hit submit before I say something I might regret.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
life ain't, wasn't, and won't be.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
You do realize that it takes money to sue someone correct? Well, technically you could file yourself but you will quickly lose because a laymen is not going to understand the required procedures even assuming they could figure out the correct paperwork to file to get the case started.
Very few lawyers work pro bono. If any risk at all existed in the case (including to their reputation) lawyers can and often do refuse cases.
No, it's not practical for a homeless person to sue anyone. In a criminal case a lawyer must be provided if the person can not afford one, but that is not true with civil cases.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
What does this story have to do with Linux?
I assume you were going for "funny".
But on the off chance you (or some reader) is asking this seriously...
Slashdot is about things that are of interest to nerds. The approval process for new drugs (which might save, enhance, damage, or end their lives) is one of those subjects.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
The easy way for a doctor to have his license revoked it going outside of mainstream medicine. Reading too much medicine research papers can lead to such situation, and it seems a perfect fit to run human drug trials.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
The author is surprised and outraged that in order to develop drugs for mental illness, those drugs are being tested on the mentally ill?
Where's all the pro-science crowd who keeps telling us to blindly trust medical science when the stories of people (mistakenly) avoiding certain well-tested drugs come up?
The rhetoric does nothing but defeat their actual viewpoint and this is why -- bad science is being done, and it needs to be accounted for to the sceptics, no matter who insane they may seem. Bad science is the enemy of good science because it undermines trust in the system.
- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
Honestly it's more of a joke looking from the outside, enjoy your 'freedom'.
the 'death' is what attracts people to the drugs.
Bad research -- this is the major gotcha of drug advocacy. Science has proven recreational use of drugs, notably marijuana, causes all manner of mental and physical problems. This is a matter of fact.
Drug advocacy groups like drugpolicy.org and NORML use so-called quack doctors to produce counter-research that state the exact opposite. These are not clinical trials, they are run by "experts" that are retired, or barred from practicing medicine, and are often life-long drug advocates and users themselves and are not impartial at all.
Want proof? When a medical journal reports on the dangers of marijuana, drug advocacy groups are quick to post rebuttals that insult the authors and blame the sample size only. What they don't provide -- what they NEVER provide -- is a shred of peer reviewed medical research that indicates the contrary. Because there is no such evidence!
I don't care if you are for drugs, or against drugs. Just ask yourself, "Why do drug advocates have to lie to me?" If drugs are so good to use, and so safe, can't they stand on their own, even under scrutiny? They can't, so the fake experts and quack doctors are called in to produce unscientific results in an attempt to rebuke what real science has determined.
When you run what drug advocates say through the filter of peer-reviewed medical research, very little of their claims are valid, and those that are tend to be for people in exceptional conditions and almost _always_ involve marijuana use with the psychoactive components removed or greatly minimized.
Facts, science, and medicine do not support recreational drug use. So drug advocates rely heavily on a misinformation campaign to cast doubt on facts, science and medicine to justify what they're endorsing. The drug industry is taking a page directly from the tobacco industries' playbook, word for word.
Look, none of this is common place. It's very rare. Why? Because if this happens, then the multi-million dollar trial you paid for is worthless and would have to be redone.
That's why they'll tell you that they aren't doing any drugs and this is the only clinical trial they're participating in, and maybe throw in a fake name for good measure.
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
Can drug testing be performed through simulation and modeling? Can drugs tested on genetically engineered tissued?
Revolution is the opium of the intellectuals.
Ah, yes, nothing like dropping the F-bomb and using all upper case to make your point. You must be right, Bill. You absolutely must be.
Just let the consumer take their lumps..
Which company, which drug?
not only am i homeless and mentally ill but i am also a drug addict who has been tested for years by various institutions. the problem with drug testing as done by the fda is that it no longer has the best interest of the masses in mind. it is controlled by big corporations as everything else in this glorious capitalist society of ours is. the problem with drug testing as done in a cup by me in a bathroom is that the drugs i take do not show up on the six, twelve or even eighteen panel litmus test. there will always be a new illusive drug just beyond scope of detection.
It is what it is.
Bias results. The FDA doesn't run very many independent tests. Congress doesn't fund it to conduct lots of testing on its own, so it has to rely on studies provided by the drug companies who are at the same time looking for their products to be approved by the FDA. That is a huge opportunity for bias. Actually, most federal regulators have this problem. Each Cabinet Secretary is charged with a built-in conflict of interest, The agency regulates an industry it also promotes and the special interests, industry lobbyists get s big influence by their access to Congress and the funding process, so they can effectively limit the effectiveness of the agency to conduct independent unbiased tests. The Conservative rap that government interfers with business is largely offset by the subsidies and access business groups get from government through legislation. I think this is most obvious at Agriculture. Corruption of the food supply is at least as serious as any problems with drug approvals, especially when chemical and agribusiness interests push food processing and substituting of profitable additives into the food supply. The mere substitution of corn syrup for beet and cane sugar because of a cost surge in the 1990s has huge unforseen implications not seen by testing procedures that give the benefit of the doubt to the business people seeking the approvals. That one change probably has led to the obesity epidemic we are seeing now because the way fructose is converted directly into fat was not known at the time. It was assumed that it was just a cheaper carbohydrate substitute, but it is not. The implication is that to the extant the FDA and Agriculture Department support that change and support the business plans of the processed food industry will drive the high cost of Medical Care for decades to come, including Medicare. If the government decided that the food processing industry has made a huge mistake that is going to cost the nation trillions, the reaction would be as serious as it was to tobacco companies. The problem is how much government really is in bed with business interests and not the advisories some Republicans claim they are.
BOOM! Headshot!
I am sooooo glad that someone on this site is thinking of the goddamned children (and they are damned aren't they? What loving god would give them malaria?). I know that we, as a society, make the best decisions for the entire population by simply thinking about those goddamned children. I think about them all day, every day. Sometimes I think I might think too much but I just tell myself that I'm making up for those of us who don't have thoughts about children. I'm just so happy that I'm not alone in this world. I'm thrilled that there are others who think about children and get emotionally worked up about it. It really shows how deeply you care about those goddamned kids and how much you think about them, their feelings, and what's best for them. Don't ever stop thinking about those goddamned children!
You're representative of the homeless community because you've fucking triple classed. Triple classed guys always fit into the "knower of everything, master of nothing" category. Drop the fighter part and rework your XP into the rogue class. If you're a good rogue you'll be just as powerful as any fighter. Rogues are in high demand, but industry knows that fighters mostly suffer from the dumb jock syndrome, and so they don't want them around (unless they're hiring for soldiers or cops). The mage was a good choice, even if you are a shitty one. I mean, what company doesn't want a motherfuckin wizard!