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You are encouraged to report negative side effects of prescription drugs.
Thalidomide was undoubtedly a big mistake when viewed from one simple perspective
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Whilst this can be extremely unpleasant, it is not by and large a life-
Even so, Thalidomide has now come back into use -
The risk / benefit analysis can work both ways.
One of our concerns is that apparently effective therapies for serious conditions may be delayed or even halted by the regulations which are supposed to protect us, to the point of leading to numbers of deaths of the very public they are supposed to be safeguarding.
This is a conundrum which has strong arguments on both sides -
Do they not also have the right to disclaim others from culpable responsibility?
Proventus as a group does not yet hold any particular position in this debate but we wish to raise the matter to greater prominence and see it debated more openly.
It may be justifiable to take up a stance in favour of higher standards but it is certainly difficult to see the logic of this when your quality of life, even your life itself, is at grave risk when inaction or dangerous delay is the alternative.
In this age when we openly debate and consider the right, or otherwise, of individuals to end their lives, do we not owe just as much consideration to those who might want to take a risk in just maintaining theirs....?
Protection & Safeguards - A Viewpoint
2005
Therapeutic licensing agencies the world over are becoming ever more demanding of safety and efficacy evidence prior to licensing of treatment and we would agree that this has been a very good thing for the population at large.
Standards have continued to be raised and made ever stricter in the push for quality. Unfortunately this has a negative aspect in which the timescale's and other inherent costs associated with following and enforcing these standards can very well mean that the availability of treatments are substantially delayed to the very serious detriment of some of those who could / should be benefiting.
New regulations imposed in the EU certainly raise the bar for the production of new medications but just how far should this process go?
In the case of small Pharmaceutical Companies trying to retain the ability to develop newer treatments, the burden of cost (both in terms of the requirement for clinical data and the higher costs of production) may actually mean that some treatments may never get to market at all.
Even for larger corporations these burdens will lead to delay and higher cost which
ultimately will impact the end-
As a healthy individual with a healthy family, one could easily be swayed by the logic of greater protection and safeguards being given to the public at large but when viewed from the other side things start to take a very different perspective
Those suffering from progressive and debilitating conditions often spend years under increasing stress and depression as they wait in hope for a solution of some sort.
New drugs are being developed all the time and they stand ready to help many thousands
of people in dire straits -
Our greatest concern in this sphere is that holding treatments back because they have not yet jumped over the highest hurdles so far devised may end up harming and even killing more people from lack of prompt care than would actually have been at risk in the first place!
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