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From: kfl%mx.lcs.mit.edu@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU
Newsgroups: mod.politics
Subject: Drugs
Message-ID: <12240607988.25.MCGREW@RED.RUTGERS.EDU>
Date: Sun, 21-Sep-86 01:07:54 EDT
Article-I.D.: RED.12240607988.25.MCGREW
Posted: Sun Sep 21 01:07:54 1986
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    ... In a purely libertarian society, the seller of the drug is
    within his rights to sell anything to anyone who will buy, ...

  Excluding fraud.  Selling drugs which cause known bad effects
without informing the buyer of the effects is fraud.
  Actually, most doctors don't bother to warn their patients of all
the side effects.  Patients should look up any drugs in the
Physician's Desk Reference or similar refererence work before taking
them.

    A typical rejoinder to unregulated medicine is that word will get
    around and the seller will not be able to sell any more.  This is
    not so good for the people who get zapped before word gets 
    around...

  Reasonable people will be more likely to choose drugs which have
been tested for ill effects.  Such testing is thus in the interests of
drug companies.  Most people would probably continue to only use drugs
suggested by their doctors.  All I am saying is that if someone really
wants to take a drug their doctor doesn't recommend, even a drug that
has never been tested, they should be free to do so.
  I can't think of any excuse for forbidding drugs to AIDS patients
and terminal cancer patients.  What have they got to lose?  So what if
the drug hasn't been tested?  There is evidence from animal studies
that a drug called AZT can attack AIDS.  But only a handful of AIDS
victims are allowed to use it.  Why?
                                                              ...Keith

[ What indeed do they have to lose but the their money and the money
of their families, and the financial ruination from buying drugs or
treatments that don't work?  Is it right to allow them to be
victimized by profit-hungry drug vultures?  Such people are going to
grab at anything that comes their way.  Do we just say too bad about
them?

   Also, since normal people don't have the resources to test drugs
(except on themselves), drugs will be tested in just this way.  Is
this a good thing?  We've already been the rounds on fraud.  The
question comes down to who you talk to about whether the mark was
properly 'informed' or not.  - CWM]
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