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Welcome to the nexus of ethics, psychology, morality, technology, health care, and philosophy
Showing posts with label Drug Treatment. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Drug Treatment. Show all posts

Wednesday, February 21, 2018

The Federal Right to Try Act of 2017—A Wrong Turn for Access to Investigational Drugs and the Path Forward

Alison Bateman-House and Christopher T. Robertson
JAMA Intern Med. Published online January 22, 2018.

In 2017, President Trump said that “one thing that’s always disturbed”1 him is that the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) denies access to experimental drugs even “for a patient who’s terminal…[who] is not going to live more than four weeks [anyway.]”  Fueled by emotionally charged anecdotes recirculated by libertarian political activists, 38 states have passed Right to Try laws. In 2017, the US Senate approved a bill that would create a national law (Box). As of December 2017, the US House of Representatives was considering the bill.

The article is here.

Wednesday, October 4, 2017

Google Sets Limits on Addiction Treatment Ads, Citing Safety

Michael Corkery
The New York Times
Originally published September 14, 2017

As drug addiction soars in the United States, a booming business of rehab centers has sprung up to treat the problem. And when drug addicts and their families search for help, they often turn to Google.

But prosecutors and health advocates have warned that many online searches are leading addicts to click on ads for rehab centers that are unfit to help them or, in some cases, endangering their lives.

This week, Google acknowledged the problem — and started restricting ads that come up when someone searches for addiction treatment on its site. “We found a number of misleading experiences among rehabilitation treatment centers that led to our decision,” Google spokeswoman Elisa Greene said in a statement on Thursday.

Google has taken similar steps to restrict advertisements only a few times before. Last year it limited ads for payday lenders, and in the past it created a verification system for locksmiths to prevent fraud.

In this case, the restrictions will limit a popular marketing tool in the $35 billion addiction treatment business, affecting thousands of small-time operators.

The article is here.