To: Stephen O who wrote (8650 ) 11/22/2004 10:03:17 PM From: Casaubon Read Replies (1) | Respond to You have a preconceived notion about my opinions because of your biased slant against big pharma. I never claimed big pharma was altruistic. They are a business and must make a profit to remain in the game. They provide a valuable service and do tremendous good for the benefit of human suffering but, it comes at a price. all drugs have inherant risks . That does not make them bad drugs, nor does it make big pharma evil or immoral. The article is trying to enlighten people about the general dual edged nature of medicine. There is some risk, which is supposed to be greatly outweighed by some benefit. Also, as I've mentioned before, the article points out that clinical trials can not identify all side effects. Only the most common events are identified in a trial. When a drug is administered to a larger population many more side effects are discovered, including drug-drug interactions, which are not often encountered in a clinical setting.had to put their own necks in the noose. They had to shoulder the burden of expense to demonstrate that their own multi-billion dollar drug needed to be removed from the market. When confronted with the very real possibility of increased heart risk, that is exactly what Merck did. They paid for an expensive, massive clinical trial which demonstrated the need to remove there own drug! That is not the action of an immoral company!
