Stupid bureaucrats in action

[MacQuarrie]

"I know! Let's make things worse, and piss off our friends while we're at it!" (http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/tm_objectid=16147117&method=full&siteid=94762&headline=exclusive--58--up-in-flames-name_page.html)

Can somebody please take the Big Stick o' Learnin' to our leaders?

[Alex]

I find it odd that the FDA wouldn't approve this, when they approve drugs that have killed people.

[MacQuarrie]

I find it odd that the FDA wouldn't approve this, when they approve drugs that have killed people.
There aren't any deep pockets lobbying for this. There aren't any cushy private-sector jobs awaiting any FDA clown who shepherds this through.

[DarkBlade]

.. I can't type my response here. The expletive to standard word ratio is too high.

[BlairH]

How now brown bureaucrats

[Puma]

one might wonder if the fact that no US company will be making a profit from the food...nah, now I'm just being paranoid and mean-spirited

[Winslow]

Wow.

Bizarre.

Then again, this is the government that coordinated the rescue efforts . . .

[Paul McEnery]

one might wonder if the fact that no US company will be making a profit from the food...nah, now I'm just being paranoid and mean-spirited
No, you're not.

The US has been running protectionism on food, drink, drugs, and god knows what else for years. The whole point of the FDA at this point is to protect American industry.

IOW, SOS.

[MacQuarrie]

No, you're not.

The US has been running protectionism on food, drink, drugs, and god knows what else for years. The whole point of the FDA at this point is to protect American industry.

IOW, SOS.
That's fine and dandy under normal circumstances. When people are dying, the rules go out the frigging window.

Here's another one, from the YABS board....
http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/09/15/katrina.response/index.html

[Paul McEnery]

That's fine and dandy under normal circumstances. When people are dying, the rules go out the frigging window.

Here's another one, from the YABS board....
http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/09/15/katrina.response/index.html
Well, I never thought it was fine and dandy. I thought it was bullshit when Bush kept cheap Canadian drugs off the US market -- which are a matter of life and death, actually. I thought it was bullshit when Bush went to court to prevent the EU from privileging Third World providers of bananas. I think it's bullshit that the US offers subsidies to corn farms.

It's all part of the same system, and if this one instance of blatant stupidity and injustice gets people to wake up to the total system of blatant stupidity and injustice, that would be lovely.

[K'Nort]

I'm leery of the fact I'm not finding this in any other news source.

And that's good news.

[MacQuarrie]

Well, I never thought it was fine and dandy. I thought it was bullshit when Bush kept cheap Canadian drugs off the US market -- which are a matter of life and death, actually. I thought it was bullshit when Bush went to court to prevent the EU from privileging Third World providers of bananas. I think it's bullshit that the US offers subsidies to corn farms.

It's all part of the same system, and if this one instance of blatant stupidity and injustice gets people to wake up to the total system of blatant stupidity and injustice, that would be lovely.
It's not Bush keeping "cheap Canadian drugs off the US market." The drugs in question are American drugs. The pharmaceutical companies sell in foreign countries at a price point that reflects only the cost of manufacture. Americans also get to pick up the costs of research, political lobbying and advertising. Somebody has to pay those costs (at least the R&D, anyway). Reducing the cost to Americans would require either stopping further research or shifting some of the cost to other countries, many of which cannot afford it. This is an example of an act of charity being turned around and made into an accusation.

I agree with you about the bananas and the corn (and tobacco and milk and all the other) subsidies.

[BlairH]

I question the Mirror's authenticity. Over here in the UK, that paper is called "a rag".

[Gaz]

I'm leery of the fact I'm not finding this in any other news source.

And that's good news.
Try the other British ones. This stuff tends to get reported over here, but not in the US. (The originally posted source is British, btw)

[K'Nort]

Try the other British ones. This stuff tends to get reported over here, but not in the US. (The originally posted source is British, btw)

I would expect our media to be all over that, actually. They're loving the negatives. And isn't the Mirror not too credible? (I knew it was British.) Isn't it like the New York Post? I found a couple left-wing American papers that quoted the story verbatim, but nothing wire-related.

[Gaz]

I would expect our media to be all over that, actually. They're loving the negatives. And isn't the Mirror not too credible? (I knew it was British.) Isn't it like the New York Post? I found a couple left-wing American papers that quoted the story verbatim, but nothing wire-related.
I checked the main British paper that I trust, the Independent (it's usually more balanced and accurate than most of the others) via website, nothing. So it's not confirmed, but the very fact that it's plausible is scary.

[MacQuarrie]

I take responsibility for it. I posted it here. Somebody forwarded it to me and I reposted it.

I don't know beans about British newspapers, which ones are legitimate and which ones are scandal rags. But evidently I'm learning.

Move along. Nothing to see here.

[Alex]

I checked the main British paper that I trust, the Independent (it's usually more balanced and accurate than most of the others) via website, nothing. So it's not confirmed, but the very fact that it's plausible is scary.
Do they do stuff like this a lot?
Id imagine running a completly uncomfirmed story as fact would kinda hurt a paper.

[Gaz]

I take responsibility for it. I posted it here. Somebody forwarded it to me and I reposted it.

I don't know beans about British newspapers, which ones are legitimate and which ones are scandal rags. But evidently I'm learning.

Move along. Nothing to see here.
The one I mentioned is pretty reliable... here ya go. (http://www.independent.co.uk)

[Gaz]

Do they do stuff like this a lot?
Id imagine running a completly uncomfirmed story as fact would kinda hurt a paper.
Argh, not unconfirmed like that, just meant that I didn't see anyone else running it.
(Although it has happened before...)

[FunkyGreenJerusalem]

Do they do stuff like this a lot?
Id imagine running a completly uncomfirmed story as fact would kinda hurt a paper.

You'd think so, but then again the Fox news channel is still going strong, so confirming stories doesn't seem big on the agenda.

[FunkyGreenJerusalem]

It's not Bush keeping "cheap Canadian drugs off the US market." The drugs in question are American drugs. The pharmaceutical companies sell in foreign countries at a price point that reflects only the cost of manufacture. Americans also get to pick up the costs of research, political lobbying and advertising. Somebody has to pay those costs (at least the R&D, anyway). Reducing the cost to Americans would require either stopping further research or shifting some of the cost to other countries, many of which cannot afford it. This is an example of an act of charity being turned around and made into an accusation.

I agree with you about the bananas and the corn (and tobacco and milk and all the other) subsidies.

Yet the drugs are still cheaper than yours in countries which can afford it.

As the majority of pharmaceutical profits come from drugs to give men erections and hairloss treatments, and the pharmaceutical companies always make large profits, that maybe you are getting screwed on the whole drug situation.

[MacQuarrie]

Yet the drugs are still cheaper than yours in countries which can afford it.

As the majority of pharmaceutical profits come from drugs to give men erections and hairloss treatments, and the pharmaceutical companies always make large profits, that maybe you are getting screwed on the whole drug situation.
We definitely are. Especially since the numbnuts in Congress decided to allow them to advertise prescription drugs. That's nothing more than soliciting hypochondriacs. "Ask your doctor about..." This increases demand for prescription drugs, which then raises a demand for insurance or government subsidies of prescription drugs, which makes more money available for them, allowing the makers to raise prices.

Parkinson's Law in action.

Americans are over-medicated and gettign moreso every day. And all the solutions put forth to pay for the drugs actually serve to artificially raise the prices while hiding the cost from the consumer.

We can be a really stupid lot.

[FunkyGreenJerusalem]

We definitely are. Especially since the numbnuts in Congress decided to allow them to advertise prescription drugs. That's nothing more than soliciting hypochondriacs. "Ask your doctor about..." This increases demand for prescription drugs, which then raises a demand for insurance or government subsidies of prescription drugs, which makes more money available for them, allowing the makers to raise prices.


Not to mention that some drugs, can lose effect over the time - it stops having an effect on you, so if you really do need it it won't do what you need.

Hence the stupidity of people taking anti-biotics for a cold and such. What happens if you build up an immunity and then get really sick?

[Paul McEnery]

It's not Bush keeping "cheap Canadian drugs off the US market." The drugs in question are American drugs. The pharmaceutical companies sell in foreign countries at a price point that reflects only the cost of manufacture. Americans also get to pick up the costs of research, political lobbying and advertising. Somebody has to pay those costs (at least the R&D, anyway). Reducing the cost to Americans would require either stopping further research or shifting some of the cost to other countries, many of which cannot afford it. This is an example of an act of charity being turned around and made into an accusation.

I agree with you about the bananas and the corn (and tobacco and milk and all the other) subsidies.
Nope. It's well true on the pharmaceuticals as well.

Bollocks to the marketing and the lobbying. That's a huge cost and can go to hell.

I've got an acquaintance who dumpster dives pharmaceutical companies for patents. Why? Because he's an immunologist, and because he's gay. The companies came up with useful ideas for HIV drugs and ditched them because they couldn't make them money. So he buys the patents, puts the drugs into production himself, and they get the profit. (Mind, so does he.)

These are the same companies who can't stand the idea that their work should save lives in Africa at cut rate.

It's the same bs overall about copyright and ownership belonging to corporations that we see all over the place. Sod those bastards.

[Paul McEnery]

Do they do stuff like this a lot?
Id imagine running a completly uncomfirmed story as fact would kinda hurt a paper.
It does. If you're wrong. And if you're English.

The Mirror, under a previous editor, ran a false story about British torture in Iraq. It turned out to be a hoax. The editor didn't do his job. He was fired.

So I reckon you can trust this.






Mind, if you hire Judith Miller, and she files one bullshit report after another on the government's sayso, and then she gets nailed on doing it, and chooses to go to jail rather than screw her career, then you back her to the hilt on false journalist integrity crap --- why then you're the NYT.

Which is sad, because the NYT is the closest the US has to a real newspaper.

[StoneGold]

OK, I guess we're all pretty much calling bullshit on this at this point, but a couple of logic issues...

1. We're a little past the point of trying to get MREs to starving people at this point, aren't we?

2. Even when we were trying to get MREs to starving people, it wasn't about not having the food in general, it was about getting the food to the people who needed it. So there's like nine kinds of "this don't make sense" in this story.

[The Mirrorball Man]

Do they do stuff like this a lot?
Id imagine running a completly uncomfirmed story as fact would kinda hurt a paper.
Unconfirmed story? We don't know if it's an unconfirmed story yet. In journalistic terms, a "confirmed story" is one that has been confirmed by at least two independant and reliable sources. It has nothing to do with other papers running the same story.

I'm not saying this is true, btw. I'm just saying that even if a single paper is publishing a story, it might be completely true.

[JeffreyWKramer]

It's not Bush keeping "cheap Canadian drugs off the US market." The drugs in question are American drugs. The pharmaceutical companies sell in foreign countries at a price point that reflects only the cost of manufacture. Americans also get to pick up the costs of research, political lobbying and advertising. Somebody has to pay those costs (at least the R&D, anyway). Reducing the cost to Americans would require either stopping further research or shifting some of the cost to other countries, many of which cannot afford it. This is an example of an act of charity being turned around and made into an accusation.

A huge part of the cost of drugs - higher than RnD - is advertising and promotion. And, that's a huge part of what the American consumers are paying for. The pharm companies say RnD, but I've seen first hand how much money they fork out on the advertising, whether it's big ads in medical journals, booths at conferences or the hugely expensive ads they run on network TV. I personally see no reason why the consumer should foot the bill for advertising.

[Donald M.]

I take responsibility for it. I posted it here. Somebody forwarded it to me and I reposted it.

I don't know beans about British newspapers, which ones are legitimate and which ones are scandal rags. But evidently I'm learning.

Move along. Nothing to see here.

Neither do I, but I always thought the Mirror's lack of credibility was common knowledge even outside the UK. I've always heard that British tabloids are amongst the worst when it comes to just blatantly making shit up. That doesn't make this story untrue, but we'll definately need to see it elsewhere first.

[K'Nort]

A huge part of the cost of drugs - higher than RnD - is advertising and promotion. And, that's a huge part of what the American consumers are paying for. The pharm companies say RnD, but I've seen first hand how much money they fork out on the advertising, whether it's big ads in medical journals, booths at conferences or the hugely expensive ads they run on network TV. I personally see no reason why the consumer should foot the bill for advertising.

Here's a really good piece on the prescription drugs thing. By Malcolm Gladwell, author of Blink and The Tipping Point. I love him so.

High Prices -- Oct 2004 (http://gladwell.com/2004/2004_10_25_a_drugs.html)