In this business, as in any government business, anonymous sources are usually anonymous for a good reason. The guy probably feared he'd lose his job, or worse. Putting people on what's called deep background enables them to tell what they know with less risk to themselves and their families.
Is everyone genuinely so concerned with profit that they don't care about the consequences anymore?
Like our correspondent Sabrina said recently, everything has always been up for sale. It's why people shouldn't simply swallow everything they're told.
I have noticed among doctors, especially among psychiatrists, a belief in their own infallibility. They can't ever admit to being wrong.
They are coached in this belief system at medical school. I'm serious. It is very close to being a religion, or more specifically, a kind of mystic lodge. The insistence upon a "necessity" for animal experimentation in medical schools is partially based on the fact that vivisection is not just to study anatomy and how things work, but a kind of initiatory ritual; on a primal, hindbrain level, it amounts to a blood sacrifice.
Offlabel use of medicines in the way you describe has always existed, but today is increasing. The wonderful successes of some offlabel uses, as with Calan (a blood-pressure medicine that cures migraines), have led to the sheer lunacy you describe. It's like giving someone mint tea for a broken leg, but you can't tell that to them. They're doing this not to help people, but because they can.
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branchandroot
no subject
Date: 2005-01-02 05:35 pm (UTC)Is everyone genuinely so concerned with profit that they don't care about the consequences anymore?
Like our correspondent Sabrina said recently, everything has always been up for sale. It's why people shouldn't simply swallow everything they're told.
I have noticed among doctors, especially among psychiatrists, a belief in their own infallibility. They can't ever admit to being wrong.
They are coached in this belief system at medical school. I'm serious. It is very close to being a religion, or more specifically, a kind of mystic lodge. The insistence upon a "necessity" for animal experimentation in medical schools is partially based on the fact that vivisection is not just to study anatomy and how things work, but a kind of initiatory ritual; on a primal, hindbrain level, it amounts to a blood sacrifice.
Offlabel use of medicines in the way you describe has always existed, but today is increasing. The wonderful successes of some offlabel uses, as with Calan (a blood-pressure medicine that cures migraines), have led to the sheer lunacy you describe. It's like giving someone mint tea for a broken leg, but you can't tell that to them. They're doing this not to help people, but because they can.