By oracknows on August 16, 2015.
The approval of new drugs and medical devices is a process fraught with scientific, political, and ethical landmines. Inherent in any such process is an unavoidable conflict between rigorous science and safety on the one side, which tend to slow the process down by requiring large randomized clinical trials that can take years, versus forces that demand faster approval. For example, patients suffering from deadly diseases demand faster approval of drugs that might give them the hope of surviving their disease, or at least of surviving considerably longer. This is a powerful force for reform, as evidenced by HIV/AIDS activism in the 1980s and 1990s that led to the development of fast-track approval mechanisms for drugs for life-threatening conditions, a change whose effects have been mixed. It s also a powerful force potentially for ill, as I ve documented in my posts about the understandable but misguided right-to-try movement. Af
June 5, 2021 marks the 40th anniversary of the first report of AIDS cases and the onset of the American AIDS epidemic. In a new, thought-provoking paper in the New England Journal of Medicine, Columbia professors capture the experiences of the physicians who were central to the AIDS epidemic. In the words of the doctors, they relay what it meant to look back after 40 years and how they aged together.
Why using fear to promote COVID-19 vaccination and mask wearing could backfire
You probably still remember public service ads that scared you: The cigarette smoker with throat cancer. The victims of a drunk driver. The guy who neglected his cholesterol lying in a morgue with a toe tag.
With new, highly transmissible variants of SARS-CoV-2 now spreading, some health professionals have started calling for the use of similar fear-based strategies to persuade people to follow social distancing rules and get vaccinated.
There is compelling evidence that fear can change behavior, and there have been ethical arguments that using fear can be justified, particularly when threats are severe. As public health professors with expertise in history and ethics, we have been open in some situations to using fear in ways that help individuals understand the gravity of a crisis without creating stigma.
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Two crossed lines that form an X . It indicates a way to close an interaction, or dismiss a notification. People lining up in a Disneyland parking lot to receive COVID-19 vaccines on January 13, 2021 in Anaheim, California. Valerie Macon/AFP/Getty Images
Fear can be an effective strategy to dissuade the public from certain behaviors, like smoking or drunk-driving.
Still, professors and public health ethics experts Lauren Fairchild and Ronald Bayer say scare tactics against COVID-19 could backfire.
They believe fear-based messaging could further erode the public s trust in scientists and health officials.
You probably still remember public service ads that scared you: The cigarette smoker with throat cancer. The victims of a drunk driver. The guy who neglected his cholesterol lying in a morgue with a toe tag.