I’m going to argue against the pharmaceutical companies. Yes, I know that overall, I think they’re way too demonized. But I have to say I see a lot of sense in the proposal featured in today’s Washington Post that would take three big allergy drugs off the prescription list. That would make them available over the counter and force consumers, rather than insurance companies or HMOs, to pay for them entirely. Presto! The insurance companies save a whole lot of money. And we all get to stop sneezing. In England, you can get Claritin over the counter as I found in a major nasal explosion last June. Some FDA types worry about long-term use and say that we still don’t know whether these drugs can do real damage. So put a big ol’ warning label on them. There are probably many other drugs that are just as harmless and useful that could be taken off the prescription list – for headaches, diarrhea, ulcers, and so on. Why not set up a commission to study which ones? Taking doctors out of menial treatments for common woes helps free them for the more sophisticated work they’re better at anyway. So lets liberalize the system some, treat people more like grown-ups, and make drug costs more susceptible to genuine market forces. A deal?
SATURDAY NIGHT TAPED: This Saturday on C-SPAN, they’ll be broadcasting a talk I gave recently at Stanford University on “The Politics of Homosexuality.” It’ll be on at 8 pm Eastern and again at 11.30pm Eastern. Check it out. A lively question and answer session as well.
THE NANNY-STATE VERSUS AIDS RESEARCH: Interesting piece in the Times today about advertising for HIV drugs. Not only do drug companies now have to remove any images of healthy, active people from their ads, they are advised to tell consumers that the drugs are no cure. The revealing statement, however, is buried in the piece. It’s from a gay marketing executive, Todd Evans, who places some of these ads in gay publications and elsewhere. “Since the warning letters were sent, Mr. Evans said, he was told by executives at one maker of AIDS drugs that they “are going to sit it out for a couple of months” and stop advertising “to see where this goes.” “I’m concerned as a gay person that if you take the profitability from H.I.V. drugs, the companies will go on to larger markets with greater profits,” he added.” Hey, Todd. You’re not the only one.
NMD MOVES FORWARD: Revealing column in the left-wing Guardian today. It’s by Hugo Young, a generally Europhile man of the left whose skepticism of all things American can be taken as given. He dropped by the first attempt by the Bush team to soft-sell National Missile Defense in Europe. His judgment? It’s working: “[O]ne part of [Europe’s] scepticism has begun to evaporate. Countries that were scornful of the rogue-state threat now acknowledge that there could be a threat, even though they’re not persuaded how best to deal with it. Jacques Chirac periodically spits at Washington, but even official France does not always demur. One of the most lucid recent studies of NMD, stating that “the hypotheses of US policy-makers cannot be easily dismissed”, was written by an official at the French defence ministry.” The lesson for Bush? If you lead and if you make sense, they will follow. Even, God help us, the French.
The Dish 