KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU (12/15/86)
[ 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?
You see people as inevitable victims except when someone protects
them by making many of their potential actions illegal. I see people
as free individuals who know better than the self proclaimed experts
what is best for themselves. Or who should at least be presumed to
know better, for the alternative is tyranny.
Are you comfortable with the idea of big brother looking over your
shoulder with the legal authority to countermand any of your personal
decisions about how to run your own life whenever he believes he knows
better than you what is best for you?
I won't even argue about your implicit contention that the medical
industry knows what is medically best for everyone.
Also, since normal people don't have the resources to test
drugs (except on themselves), drugs will be tested in just this
way.
Only abnormal people ever read anything about the effectiveness and
dangers of potential treatments for their disease?
... 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]
Indeed it does. Your answer seems to be he was never informed
unless he chose to agree with the authorities. Even in the case where
his agreement means certain death, as in the case of AIDS or fatal
cancer.
I am encouraged by the liberalization of access to AZT by AIDS
victims, now that AZT has been proven to be useful in controlling that
disease. But of course whether to try AZT should have been the
patient's choice all along. How many have died who might have lived
had AZT been legal sooner?
...Keith
[ I beleive that much the delay on AZT was simply that it sat on
someone's shelf for 3 years before it was tested. I seem to have read
that somewhere...
In any event, I stick to my point that people who have some
terminal illness are ripe targets. I did not generalize this to
'everyone', thank you very much. -CWM]
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