From: hrubin@pop.stat.purdue.edu (Herman Rubin)
Subject: Re: From _Scientific American_
Organization: Purdue University Statistics Department
Date: Mon, 25 Jan 1993 19:29:15 GMT

In article <1993Jan23.042628.16301@netcom.com> cliftonr@netcom.com (Pope Clifton) writes:
>Tim Starr (starr@genie.slhs.udel.edu) wrote:
>: In article <1993Jan19.020022.911160@locus.com> yazz@locus.com (Bob Yazz) writes:
>: }And beta-blockers are just one category of drug!
>: Yep.  I posted an article about the Fascist Death Authority's censorship on
>: notification of results of aspirin studies on heart disease from the Orange
>: County Register.  The suppliers of aspirin are banned from telling anyone
>: on their labels that their risk of death could be decrease by 40% if they took
>: some each day.  This adds about 20 grand more deaths to their body count.

>Maybe because taking daily doses of aspirin poses risks in itself, with no
>corresponding benefit for those who aren't at high risk for heart attack?
>You seem to be arguing that any risks from taking a drug unnecessarily can
>be ignored, even when the manufacturer is advertising that drug; yet any
>deaths which could even vaguely be attributed either to the prohibition of a
>medical drug or restriction on its advertising should be laid at the door of
>the FDA.  This seems inconsistent.

EVERYTHING has risks, and the potential benefits should be balanced against
the risks.  There are people for whom the half-tablet a day is a serious
risk; they have other problems in this regard, and should be warned, for
example, about wintergreen mints, many OTC cold remedies, etc.

>If your argument is that average individuals should be trusted/required to
>educate themselves from scientific sources about the benefits and risks of
>the medical drugs they want to take (and the traffic on alt.drugs gives me
>little confidence about their ability) then why would you claim that
>advertising is required?  If they can't find out that aspirin is helpful to
>high-risk heart attack patients (when it's trumpeted in every newspaper in
>the country) doesn't that argue that they won't check sources, and that
>there is some need to ensure advertising aimed at them is at least accurate
>and truthful?

Information can be quite hard to come by.  Also, advertising can be, and 
often is, quite misleading.  The number of adults in this country who should
avoid milk is quite large, probably in excess of 30,000,000.  We still have
these commercials touting complex carbohydrates, and even medical advice to
that effect, although that has been shown to be at best about 15% correct.
The advice not too many years ago about proper diet was to avoid carbohydrates
as "empty calories"; now it seems that getting quite a proportion of calories
from carbohydrates is a good idea; medical knowledge is changing rather fast.

>: }But rather than abolishing the FDA, I'd rather see their proclamations
>: }just become advisory.

>I would agree with this myself.  Advisory recommendations on use of
>medicine, and Truth-In-Advertising type powers to prevent wide-scale
>swindling of the public by any unscrupulous manufacturers or distributors.

There are persons and organizations making this information available.  But
I agree that some body needs to check it, make counterarguments, and provide
this to the public.  But this body needs to distinguish between conjecture
and fraud.  The FDA has exercised prior restraint and confiscation on the
grounds that the claims are "unproven".  Equally unproven claims, however,
are allowed by the FDA, such as statements that the current RDAs of vitamins
are adequate for good health.  In fact, they even want to insist on that.
As has been stated, absence of evidence is not the same as evidence of
absence, and correlation is not causality.
-- 
Herman Rubin, Dept. of Statistics, Purdue Univ., West Lafayette IN47907-1399
Phone: (317)494-6054
hrubin@snap.stat.purdue.edu (Internet, bitnet)  
{purdue,pur-ee}!snap.stat!hrubin(UUCP)