Why should anyone - the state, the medical profession, or anyone else - presume to tell someone else how much suffering they must endure as their life is ending?
Marcia AngellAlternative medicine plays into this exaggerated notion that you can prevent disease simply by doing the right thing.
Marcia AngellHealth care is a need; it's not a commodity, and it should be distributed according to need. If you're very sick, you should have a lot of it. If you're not sick, you shouldn't have a lot of it.
Marcia AngellThe United States is the only advanced country that permits the pharmaceutical industry to charge exactly what the market will bear, whatever it wants.
Marcia AngellConsider the clinicaltrials by which drugs are tested in human subjects.5 Before a new drug can enter the market, its manufacturer must sponsor clinicaltrials to show the Food and Drug Administration that the drug is safe and effective, usually as compared with a placebo or dummy pill. The results of all the trials (there may be many) are submitted to the FDA, and if one or two trials are positiveโthat is, they show effectiveness without serious riskโthe drug is usually approved, even if all the other trials are negative.
Marcia Angell