NBC Nightly News ran a story this evening about Vioxx, saying that the overwhelming majority of people taking Vioxx didn’t actually need it. This, Robert Bazell explained, was because of Merck’s slick advertising, a siren song that lured people into believing that they need it.
It’s a prescription drug. The whole idea of prescriptions is that a doctor has to approve them. NBC completely ignored the huge question here: who the hell are these doctors who are writing prescriptions that people don’t need? Why are they doing this? Why not tell people to just take some aspirin?
If they’re not withholding prescriptions, they’re writing stupid ones. I like my doctor. I ask him questions, he gives me advice, I take it or I don’t. When I want a prescription, he writes it, except for a few times when he hasn’t, for medically well-justified reasons. If I asked for, say, Vioxx, he’d say “no.” Why don’t other doctors?