I just saw a commercial for a new drug designed to treat that sexy restless leg symdrome, the treatable syndrome du jour. Everything was cruising along in typical Merck/Lilly/Phizer feelgood commercial glurge fashion until they got to the side effects, which included
WHAT THE HOLY MOTHERFUCK!?
This shit has gone too far. It was cute when they started innocuously slipping in things like “anal leakage” and “erections lasting longer than several hours” in the warnings, but this shit is beyond the pale. People FALLING ASLEEP AT THE WHEEL and then PLOWING INTO OTHER CARS? Compulsive MIND CONTROL mood alterations!??!?!?!
Motherfuck the FDA for allowing drugs to go to market when they do more harm than good. Fuck the culture of governmental cronyism that allows it to happen. Fuck these companies for rushing drugs to the market before they’re adequately tested, and fuck the FDA for allowing these companies to turn the public into their guinea pigs, resulting in fatal heart attacks, suicidal mania, birth defects…I could go on all day. Motherfuck the corporate american healthcare system that allows this to happen, as I watched over 20 drug company representatives go in and out of the doctor’s office with impunity while I waited for an appointment. Motherfuck the doctors who force handfuls of free samples of these latest fad drugs on their patients in lieu of legitimate treatment and prevention.
Considering that RLS keeps a lot of people from getting much sleep, it may be doing more harm than good in terms of excessive daytime sleepiness–just not for every individual.
As for the gambling or sexual urges, people in the treatment group in the trials probably had slightly decreased impulse control. It’s hard to imagine that the FDA would have given the indication if it happened to more than a few people, but in the ad they have to point out any side effect that occurred more often than in the placebo group. (I don’t know specifics here.)
The first rule of ecology is that you can’t change one thing. All medications have side effects. It doesn’t mean they aren’t part of “legitimate treatment and prevention”.
I read a fascinating article in Chicago Magazine about a local woman that this exact thing happened to…she took the RLS drug, and the next thing you know, she’d basically gambled away her & her husband’s entire life savings. And she had NEVER gambled before taking the drug. It was really weird.
Given that one of the side effects is an uncontrollable desire to gamble, I’d say that Nevada, Atlantic City, and several Native American tribes are likely suspects in this drug being approved.
Well, I guess we can look forward to the OP contracting some kind of inconvenient disease and “motherfucking” the FDA for dragging its feet on a promising medication.
Well, to be fair the ad only talked about falling asleep while driving. Perhaps those affected drove really well in their sleep and didn’t hit anybody.
How did you know they were drug reps? Were they all wearing smart little suits and pulling wheeled suitcases? Or was the giveaway those pizza boxes they were carrying?
Tell me… Right now: What is the safety profile for this drug? Do you know? I bet you a case of beer that you have no fucking idea what it is. No fair scrambloing about to win free beer, you have to know already, since you’ve already asserted that this drug is more harmful than not. I mean, you must be hip-deep in study reports, NDA submissions, and the like, right? No? Too bad - it’s nice beer.
Come back when you know what you’re talking about.
I agree, it’s totally inappropriate to let doctors and patients make informed choices about whether the benefits of a medication outweigh the risk. Instead, we should ban everything that isn’t 100% safe. Please hand over every item of medication in your house, including your aspirin, and look forward to dying at age 45 like people did before modern medicine was created. It’s the only safe option.
I just eat a banana or have some orange juice for my occasional restless legs - hasn’t caused me to start gambling yet. (Can’t speak to the sexual urges - I’d have to plot our sex life with my eating fruit for restless legs.)
VC03, as far as I know, the FDA (and the Canadian version, Health Canada) are actually quite strict on approving drugs since the horrors of thalidomide in the 60’s. I do agree with you that there is something stinky going on in the fields of medicine and pharmaceuticals, however. When’s the last time you heard of an actual cure for a chronic condition? The ideal that pharmaceutical companies are working for is treating symptoms but not curing; their ideal patient is someone who doesn’t die, but never gets better - you don’t get any more money out of a dead or cured patient. I don’t think this is morally acceptable.
