Re:I was a drug rep and know how pharma companies pushed opi...
by threatofrain on Monday December 02, 2019 @03:29AM
(#21680806)
I feel like this also suggests that doctors suck. If engineers couldn't interpret the information coming from the security community and due to their inability to deal with their own industry inputs they got thousands of people killed per year, it would be a far more serious deal. As far as I know, Google isn't getting thousands of people killed, but nobody is talking about reigning in the medical community.
Somehow there's no egg on the medical community's face. Is medically checking the doctor now the responsibility of patients?
Re:I was a drug rep and know how pharma companies pushed opi...
by nullc on Monday December 02, 2019 @05:18AM
(#21681253)
> As far as I know, Google isn't getting thousands of people killed per year,
At google's scale it doesn't take much bureaucratic indifference to have an outsized effect.
I would be surprised if google wasn't-- but it's spread out over thousands of distinct causes. Like maps effectively directing people to turn onto railroad tracks and google being unwilling to do anything about it (https://www.theverge.com/2019/8/12/20802036/google-apple-mic...), or maps and especially waze directing highway level flows of traffic through residential neighborhoods.
Re:I was a drug rep and know how pharma companies pushed opi...
by threatofrain on Monday December 02, 2019 @06:45AM
(#21681610)
I feel that even a bad luck spike in death by the thousands would be noticed, but you are suggesting that thousands might be dying for years and nobody notices.
Re:I was a drug rep and know how pharma companies pushed opi...
by nullc on Tuesday December 03, 2019 @07:04PM
(#21698286)
People are dying. People did notice-- though not of quite as many as thousands. Action is not being taken to do anything about it, various states are considering passing laws to force google to take action as a result.
So the protocols changed, and doctors in many areas of practice started treating opioids like ibuprofen. Hydrocodone or oxy isn’t the best choice for chronic pain, and as chronic users take it, their tolerance increases and their ability to get an effective, legal prescription slowly goes away.
The black market offered cheaper, but more dangerous alternatives.