Thanks for your comments.

You make some good points—as they relate to the pharmaceutical industry's real risks in producing new drugs and the need for “warnings,” genuine and CYA–the latter, especially in our lawsuit-prone society.

However (and back to the analogy), as to the disease not being “entirely GOP induced,” fine, fair enough, but regardless of the source or cause, if I were a patient with a terminal disease, and only a few mohts left, I believe that I would still try some new drug–proven or not, experiemntal or not–rather than the one I had been taking for eight years, or waiting for the cure-all drug to be developed—after I am long-gone.

Dorian

I have to side with David here though. Even if this hypothetical drug were tested and approved, physicians still have to take into account the 'indications' for using a drug (will it actually be likely to work in this particular condition) as well as the side effect profile (that's not just CYA- there are very serious reasons to avoid use of certain drugs in particular patients, even if the drug itself generally would be expected to have some positive effect.) So, even if this drug were well tested, the Democrats show no signs right now of using appropriate caution in their prescriptions.

But then add to that David's point, that we don't have the body of research to support the use of a huge dose of Keynesism anyway, and yes, this is like pulling out an experimental drug. And no, it's not true as you assert that after the failures of GOP policy we have no choice but to do this. First of all, we have to get the diagnosis right and realize that the disease is not entirely GOP induced (our monetary policy is made largely by nonpartisans, and mistakes by both GOP and Democrat administrations and Congresses have led up to our current situation.) And second, even if it were entirely true that the crisis was brought on by those who've held the WH and legislative power over the last eight years, it still doesn't mean that this plan will help remedy that. If you had cancer and one type of chemotherapy failed to put you in remission, it's most certainly NOT true that any other chemotherapeutic agent should have a better chance of doing so or that it wouldn't be likely to cause more harm than good.