Glaxo chief: Our drugs do not work on most patients. Only 30-50% of people are helped by prescription drugs.

[miasmommy]

Originally Posted by subsound

I'm glad it works for you, but I can say differently about some of the people I know.

Without modern pharmacology just for maintenance medication I would loose a number of people. You can't keep people alive with Chrones, immunodeficiency, hemophilia, multiple sclerosis, and severe epilepsy by just long walks and vegetables. Add into the deaths those who had severe infections, accidents or needed surgical intervention (including medications and aftercare), which includes myself (twice for surgery), and you lose another good size group of people.

If you are talking about those who have disorders because of bad lifestyle choices, they need to get their butts up and eat veggies. I'll keep chemicals for keeping myself and my loved ones alive when it's really needed, as well as eat well and exercise to stay healthy.

I'm not sure what kind of medical professional would generalize that much to say that all drugs. Some of them will, especially for lifestyle failings (not sure if it's the drug or the lifestyle though), but considering they and I would not be alive without pharmaceuticals I would say it's false.

The government will break your leg, sell you some crutches then claim "Mr johnson wouldn't be walking today if it wasn't for us!"

[subsound]

Originally Posted by Apples&Oranges

Dear Sub,

Your exact words were . . .
Without modern pharmacology just for maintenance medication I would loose a number of people.
Why would a finance guy say he would lose people? It is what a DOCTOR would say.

I'm sorry you can't seem to grasp the concept of a polite way say some one lost a battle with a fatal disease/disorder. I would think some one would have at least seen an article about cancer in their lifetime, where the term started, like NPR: Losing Someone to Cancer. The ones for "Race for the Cure" talk about people loosing those they care about to cancer about 50 times in a 30 second spot (at least it feels like it).

[texdav]

Well for many prescrition you can have test done to see if they work often. I would alos take this with a grai of salt.especailly epople with high blood prerssure ;daibetiscs etc as not treated they can be very dangerous.

[Cliffie]

Originally Posted by Viralmd

I think you need to take this with a truckload of salt.

Look at the entities with low response rates: Alzheimer's disease, Hepatitis C, cancer (which, somehow is lumped together as oncology, which doesn't make sense, because cancer is MANY, MANY diseases). These are all very difficult-to-treat entities for which drugs are approved because the clinical trial data support SOME effectiveness in SOME populations who suffer from these illnesses. Certainly not what is seen with antibiotics and infectious diseases, where the response rate for some infections approaches 95%.

This is a foolish statement at best and cherry picking data (which are taken out of context) at worst. Also, note that this is six years old. There have been better drugs brought out for incontinence, RA and cancer since then.

But the figures for less complex illnesses and the treatments for them are sometimes even worse. Remember the discovery that more than 70% of the helpful response to SSRIs is caused by the placebo effect?

[AnonChick]

Originally Posted by Cliffie

But the figures for less complex illnesses and the treatments for them are sometimes even worse. Remember the discovery that more than 70% of the helpful response to SSRIs is caused by the placebo effect?

First of all - this thread is 6 years old. You're the first person to post in it since August 2009. Second - Viralmd is no longer a member and hasn't posted on C-D for a few years now, so you're responding to someone who isn't going to be continuing the conversation with you.

Lastly - the argument is that most people are not helped by pharmaceuticals. I posit that this is untrue. Most people might possibly not be *cured* by pharmaceuticals, that seems a more reasonable assumption. It's reasonable because most people don't have things that need to be cured, or that can be cured. However - most people who have garden variety but serious illnesses that require medication to manage or treat, are successfully managed or treated by their meds.

Like - me, for example. I had a lump on my thyroid. It was a tumor. They removed the tumor, and with it half my thyroid. Thankfully the tumor was benign, but it did need to come out because it was close to the parathyroid and if it had grown much bigger I would've had to have all my thyroid -and- my parathyroid removed, and you kind of need these things.

So now, I take 100 micrograms of synthetic thyroid every day. I'll take that for the rest of my life. It is 100% successful at doing exactly what it is supposed to be doing for me, which is - maintaining a healthy thyroid level in my body, which my body can no longer do efficiently by itself.

There are people with epilepsy for whom pharmaceuticals work with 100% efficiency. In fact, most people with epilepsy can live relatively normal lives, thanks to pharmaceuticals. It used to be that they couldn't get drivers' licenses or work with machinery, because the risk of injury during a seizure was too great. Thanks to pharmaceuticals, the risk is significantly reduced for some, and completely eliminated for others - as long as they take the meds.

If the claim is "pharmaceuticals can't cure any more than half the people who take them" then you're probably right. But it's a strawman argument, because most pharmaceuticals aren't supposed to be cures, they're supposed to be treatments for things that either can't be cured, or will get better on their own, or that are recurring.

There is no cure for epilepsy. But there are treatments, and they are effective for most epileptics.
There is no cure for a removed thyroid gland. But there are synthetic hormones that can replace the hormones your missing thyroid can't make for you anymore.
There's no cure for the cold virus - since there is no singular cold virus. But there are are plenty of OTC treatments - which are made by pharmaceutical companies - that can relieve the symptoms til the sickness goes away on its own.
There's no cure for allergies - even if you have a rock-solid immune system, you can still develop an allergy to almost anything. But there are antihistimines, made by pharmaceutical companies, that can prevent an allergy attack, or treat allergy symptoms.
There's no cure for the illness known as "headache" because they're recurring and if you cure this one today, you will still get another one some time in the future. But there are things such as aspirin, naproxyn, ibuprophen, and stronger prescription drugs - all made by pharmaceutical companies - that can treat that headache and make it go away quicker than if you tried to just wait it out. They are successful most of the time, for most people who use them, as long as they're used appropriately (you don't treat a migraine with an aspirin, for example, and expect it to work).