Prescription Drugs

Glenn Greenwald shows off some surprisingly libertarian ideas in this post, as well as a fascinating comparison between the doctor-patient relationship and the attorney-client relationship (and why, indeed, is it doctor-patient rather than doctor-client?).

Why is it that lawyers are obligated to follow their clients directions even if it goes against their own advice while doctors have no such obligation, and patients have to ask them "if zocor is right for you"?

In general, I think that adult people ought to be able to do whatever they want, provided it doesn't harm others. If that means taking a medication your doctor doesn't think is right, that should be your choice. Hey, drinking Drano is dangerous (probably fatal) but we have the freedom to do that.

I often feel infantilized by the prescription regime currently in place - I am fully capable of reading relevant information about the effects of a given drug and making an informed decision about whether it's right for me, and in most cases I would readily adhere to my doctor's recommendations because he/she does, in fact, have superior medical knowledge, but what if I disagree? and what if it's just not conventient?

My girlfriend had a hell of a time getting a 6 month supply of birth control to take with us to China? Why? Yes, I'm sure getting regular gynocological exams is a good thing, but is that reason to deny us the convenience of getting important medications in the US as oppossed to China, where fake medications are a huge problem? Is there really a danger we would misuse birth control? I know, I know, we could always give it to a seven-year old and thereby encourage her to have sex, turn gay, and use drugs. . .

We also had to pay over one hundred dollars each before our trip to have a nurse explain to us things we already knew about the vaccinations we already knew we required. Really, what reason is there for preventing someone from acquiring a tetanus shot without medical supervision? And is there a black-market in malaria vaccines I don't know about? The main service a medical professional is providing in these instances is to check for anything in the medical history which would indicate against a particular drug or vaccine, and computers are better at such things than people anyway. So why continue to make everyone who goes outside of the first world waste a medical professionals valuable time?