200 Years; The American Consumer and the Law, Part 2

from communication center the university of texas at austin this is two hundred years in the year nineteen seventy six the american republic celebrates its two hundredth anniversary as a part of the us bicentennial program at the university of texas at austin two hundred years explores the past present and future dynamics of history's longest living democratic society this is rick's we're for two hundred years this week we will be talking about protection of the consumer from unsafe products continuing our discussion of the american consumer and the law which began on a previous program in the series with us today our web page keaton loss of faculty position and out in his name in the university of texas school of law the way page keaton professorship and the law of torts is former dean of the ut law school james t d'alessio dean of the university's college of pharmacy and edward that we're kind of professor of marketing administration at ut austin

just how well protected by law from harmful products is the american consumer was done about gun will actually an american consumer has the protection business just shortly before the nineteen twenties it was the first time that at the federal level is a concern for protection the consumer passage of the year from drug laws and the laws of themselves and women and strengthened but prior to that time the theory was that the consumer really it was supposed to watch out for and so each man was supposed to be as smart as the seller an answer but we can look at some of the reasons being delusional protection for the american public but often that protection is derived following catastrophes for example in the nineteen thirties we had

significant increase in protection of american public following more than a hundred deaths from an unsafe for prop nineteen sixties we saw another significant advance the following a full it might answer that first the first four minutes this is a very hard way to get increased protection and he didn't quite agree with the statement just made that the federal government has been opposed generally reacted to some kind of a disaster since the turn of the century the less changes in our society that'll come about as a result of the enormous scientific development and more about a few well one a great proliferation a product that greatly increase the hazards that memo bloom humanity i'm sure but in writing about all these and about whats really have increased incident sparked increased incidence of damaging advance and i would say it's only in the last twenty years it because of all these changes that we have

become really concerned about this but twenty years without as that really didn't exist in a simpler society one the producer was frequently one man himself from a rotten milk they consume or could judge whether these were uprooted are and satisfactory product but not a consumer is buying from a giant conglomerate corporation very complex pricing and he no longer can jive and in fact the individual judgment in erie of drugs is it's a very difficult thing the person carrying a disease probably as least able to make good judgment regarding his needs and we find the tremendous overuse syndrome products in the united states principally because of consumer demands they feel that they are not receiving the best benefits of sophisticated medical care if they cannot leave a physician's office with a prescription and go rightly or wrongly we find drugs over you so this individual judgment mary of drug products is a

very difficult thing are for the consumer were taken you a very what would be the most of you and not one can accomplish that i read from a confirmation that position that the most relevant the problem of deciding how to safely or be constructed industry needed that we should leave their marketplace that competition and to demand for consumer and this will be hellish work of consumer or albacore this will deal with what consumers want i think this again has been an evolving that feeling and this was president kennedy's and stayed in his statement of rights of the consumer of one of the ride to the consumer has the right to know or to be informed and i think that most people accept at least this minimum level that through proper labeling

information for the consumer he knows what he's buying how far we can protect consumers own carelessness is a difficult thing to interpret but certainly there has to be a balance against a large solar i strongly agree with that i think that we have a very very significant problem and consumer judgment and we did do you need a very effective series of laws and a federal regulatory agency that can bring standardization and to our knowledge can balance merits and against the toxicity use of drugs and that job before nineteen sixty you know in fact i don't think the american public generally knows that before nineteen sixty there was no need for any manufactured the drug was affective and that's that's amazing is that that you could have on the market drugs that you did not even

had have to show evidence that there were affected not think many people are taking it seems to me that there are real problems in society it's not as a result of the fact that very british all of our products well from common hazards of that to them and we will be able to eliminate product has really there really can reduce what we will be able to eliminate but i would say that there are two kinds of protesters want is the kind that results from some kind of what this period in the manufacturing construction and marketing process that results in the product may be different from what it was intended result of a bad break or your card bills are north to sell it for about a million dollars on a new party that's more that a problem the fact that i'm in in processing spoken only products are and we're getting a lot of bad products farm on the result cover falls into products

and especially in the groin area we have a lot of big hazard in croc and these are what i call these adolescent hazards at the back even in the product that would be exactly as it was intended to be a different problem that second promise most significant and i think one thing that we know we must because there's no such thing as a safe drug there is no drug that is completely potent therapeutic without a bass risk of side effect and there's this staggering figures somewhere around six percent of all emissions from hospitals are due to drug reactions drugs taken during three are protests in the problem that we've got we've got two problems with in connection with that one it's accident prevention outlaw about minimizing the number of these side reaction and so forth from gross and the second problem is what we're going to do about those who

did that my good looks through a sad reaction i'm sure you wanted with me here we we believe that pharmacists can have a greater involvement and no monitoring drug therapy and and looking for other side reactions to drugs taking your normal therapeutic the situations on the other hand that that second one this is the most difficult area certainly if a drug is taken for a purpose as it was research for with india framework approved by the food and drug administration a physician as well within his right to utilize their drug probe in that manner and there still may be such reactions he actually that also i think we have the problem that consumers may use a drug that that drug dealers prescribed for a legitimate purpose and now consumed the next time it you know it really is is something slightly different about before to have self

destructing drug and one of the big problems we've had it all last few years is what to do about the long road that the new group but the evidence indicates that great care was excised so forth but after a protracted period people notwithstanding all the procedures were followed for getting that recognizes the many people through satisfaction that is right now what's to be done about those people would not get the mild mannered role in the meantime what we would do about those losses were agents assigned to go about and that's probably read and walk oh lefty years in court that my reaction is that the prior approved to

be a bed probably whatever the reason this is something that the enterprise can bear is called mission or an ethical more thoughtful in business and who will bear the losses between leopold von enterprise the cost of an accident resulting for what proved to be fed privately you know there was all carry texas i think these lawsuits could be borne by society through art no attacks supported government payment or they can be worn an individual farming historically they've been born an individual firm recently the drug firms over i run into difficulties and congressional investigations of standing that their their profits on new products are too high

and they claim that the anonymous calls the research and development necessary to make these products say is the reason why a remarkably original margin is so there's areas of disagreement lead our human to being made in the courthouse lead days there's another cost to society and enter syria following the spill might incident nearly nineteen sixties gration a greater conservatism entered the uprooting of new drugs as i said there are no such things as safe drugs completely safe drugs and yet we find so much demand for data that the cost of introducing a new drug has just skyrocketed and in fact it was that were intended to improve the situation for the small drug manufacturer of almost when i'm out of the business of developing new drugs and across the society is significant because we have drugs not been the united states there are available elsewhere in the world that

perhaps should be available tonight and many instances have not the drugs that have been introduced in this country been developed in england sweden switzerland and the costs of development borne out blair before they are introduced here and then they're still sold at these prices the initial introduction i mean there seems to be on a quite an international relationship in many of these drugs yes at one time the fda was was very strict about accepting foreign aid but joe may now realize i believe that their own barriers to develop new drugs in united states makes it necessary for mining companies to go outside the united states for their drug development so that's entirely true often it's american companies are developing their strategies the eighties some concern on europe are

about the capacity of our desirability of social desirability album making enterprise behravesh consensual bearing and then passing it all if they can be a consuming public inform how precious once europe where you have a small farm bill we have a small firms in the good grey area are they significant part well i think that the other figures that showed something like fifty companies produce ninety five percent of americans these ahab a rather small as an industry had not not that many producers the cost factor is so important especially and i'd states as we look to our federal medicare mr medicaid programs unless we probably approaching a national health insurance right now the federal government and i think about conflict exactly right about the prophet situation

if you're one seat pricing chaos it's within the drug industry it's very difficult to zero and the pricing structures of the drug manufactures have federal government presently spends two point seven billion dollars in reimbursing drug costs and as they look at their expenditure of bart's haircut labored through the medicare medicaid business of the city and though there are now trying to do to prevent price ceilings i'm trying to say that you know this is an open ticket we want to get quality dramas but a reasonable price that he has one question are up and there's one question for the imposition on the responsibility of being with the facts about losses at a liquor is that this will have the effect of getting better quality control it would give greater care on carlos edition pratap if we look to the government to compensate those victimized by defective products we don't have that in city that we

would otherwise get on the opposition the responsibility on the enterprise on the senate what we are doing but there's an argument that would've been my guess that's an interesting point i think that though the idea that the government should should reimburse so is it ms newton i had assumed that that the enterprise itself would bear that responsibility i think that the drug industry itself if you look at the economics of it they are not a high risk industry they have consistently shown good profit and i think of some of the decisions and touch recycling and phillip mind some of the others but the enterprise itself is born i had assumed that that was the way to go but i had never even considered the bearing that cost well this becomes an alternative only a fan of government regulation changes the pricing structure so the

firms are not able to build a coalition of the reserve to take care of this sort of thing and i think this is an industry where manufacturing costs are complex the manufacturers such it is not difficult for small firms to compete i think the real problem isn't in the research and development and as this becomes more and more important and drugs it increases its tendency towards the giants and the drug and i can give you an example of a way that we felt were actually won reelection and what it was going for him when it came out great man but allow thousands and thousands of people were prevented from getting polio and i'm prevented from adam shares a nation their side table a contracted the disease that actually and that miracle world and fifty

million dollars worth it were firing of one of the company and it was not a big deal if done or whatever happened but one quarter of american it was a serious problem for the economy so it can be it can be a share of problems but for football club and make a patient although there will certainly existed and it's an interesting i think with the way or mysterious about various songs co responsibility so it was in this vaccine case because i will push the companies to get that out because there was a great need for a man and appeared to go to great discovery and it was desirable to get out and get out quickly your character what is that thing taking more time and my liver environment on a better job with this by actually in the country where the partnership and

that a fire and it was a happening have the same life and a kind of conventional seventeen years that's exactly right the problem with with drug patents those it may take seven to nine years from the time in his patent the time it reaches the market and therefore the commercial life of that happened where the income is coming and is probably relatively short but so right now we find that glow as i said since nineteen sixty not many new drugs have come on the market and many patents are expiring for very important drugs and you have smaller manufacturers now in the process of duplicating these are drugs that were once on patent and this is where a great fuel price competition as being interviews lebanese of the big question what about describing the generic term rather than now that they could be greater

efficiencies in both the prescribing and dispensing of drugs and then it's estimated that there's possibly and eight to ten years percent savings in drug costs by going that route and certainly you know the federal government is looking not at that is one of the mechanisms of low lowering its drug costs so i happen to be one of those who feel that that's a very close this year what we do in that area very little to do with the question of broke her to more and more to do with the suppression grow and it's a lot of understood from something to read that that and putting together the crock you know yet deford says the clinton brand names may lead message at large a half years in a lot of what they use as a material put these ingredients together in their own port

that's that's exactly right and that's the argument becomes back what no one can do is quantitative argument no one knows if it's a one hundred one thousand or one no you're jewish not true quote her precisely the city now recently congress has set up a special study to work at prices that set up a special study to give that quality assurance and go be a side subcommittee on health says constructing mechanisms to give the assurance the fda of course their response immediate if someone can show us that there's an inferior drew about a common market we will withdraw so they would like to make that assurance i don't think we have to have an either or situation here i think that products can be properly defined by a generic name and also my brand name and i was a curse i suppose the result would be that if they sell their products over rather than their right name in a sense the person who is responsible is the drugs the

retailer because there's no one else to go back to a good effect and accepted could be the reason that this one is why i mention that they're not always put together a professional family there are differences in quality control maybe between doesn't matter fact yes absolutely but there's a physician necessarily have any more expertise in this area of them the druggist i think that one thing that they were faced with now is for example a drug like campus on a very popular penicillin well if a pharmacist he's in a large community or twenty twenty five different brands of episodes and the fact that physicians would have personal brands that they would like forces him into a very high cost situations for his inventory and edith if you could stalk one good brand that all physicians would utilize you can see that there'd

be a tremendous savings and the whole enterprise know we've come to the conclusion of a very short program are protecting the consumer dealing primarily this time with drugs and its answers more that could be served in this direction that analysts today have included a billion page keaton who holds a faculty position and out in his name in the university of texas school of law is former dean of the law school james didn't lose your dean of the university's college of pharmacy and everybody kind of professor of marketing administration at ut austin this as rex we're for two hundred years two hundred years as part of the united states bicentennial program at the university of texas austin is a continuing series of weekly conversations about the past present and future dynamics of history's longest living democratic society two hundred years is produced by katie by communication center in association with the news and information serve is

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