Suchergebnisse

Examines three problems in research used to criticize drug marketing, drawing on a literature review gleaned from Ashley Wazana's "Physicians and the Pharmaceutical Industry: Is a Gift Ever Just a Gift?" (2000): (1) physician selection bias, (2) drug selection bias, and (3) use of surrogate endpoints rather than patient outcomes.

Argues that current demand-side policy of the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control is the wrong route to address the issue of antibiotic resistance as it reduces the value to a pharmaceutical company of investing in the creation of new antibiotics. In this light, three externalities associated with antibiotic usage are discussed: public health, antibiotic resistance, and supply-side externalities. A cost-benefit analysis of FDA policies related to increased antibiotic scrutiny ensues, finding that requiring additional testing for antibiotics makes little sense with respect to patient welfare. Two harmful effects on antibiotic resistance of this FDA policy are denying the market use of an additional antibiotic, Ketek, and the loss of pharmaceutical company incentive to develop new antibiotics.

It is often argued that ethnic conflict is an extreme example of nepotism, and is genetically based. This may be so: in the EEA (the environment of evolutionary adaptedness), such conflict may have been fitness improving, and we may be descended from those who participated successfully in such conflicts. This would provide us with a "taste" for xenophobia. But this taste can be overcome relatively easily, as shown by the changes in behavior in the United States in the 50 years since racial segregation was outlawed. Moreover, in today's world, such conflict does not provide benefits. There are several reasons for this, but the most important (and one that is often overlooked, even by evolutionists) is the possibility of gains from trade in exchanges between ethnic groups. While ethnic relations in the EEA may have approximated a zero-sum game, today a prisoner's dilemma is a more appropriate model for interactions, so that there are significant gains from cooperation. If we want to reduce the amount of conflict in the world, it is probably better to rely on increasing gains from trade than on increased size of in-groups, since the latter strategy will reach a natural limit.