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Standard VIII
Biology
Say No to Drugs
Many very eff...
Question

Many very effective prescription drugs are available to patients on a "one time only" basis. Suspicious of drug abuse, physicians will not renew a prescription for a medicine that has worked effectively for a patient. This practice denies a patient her right to health.
Which one of the following is a basic assumption made by the author?

A
A new type of medicine is likely to be more expensive
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B
Physicians are not concerned with a patient's health
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C
Most physicians prescribe inadequate amounts of medicine
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D
Patients are liable to suffer the same ailment repeatedly
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Solution

The correct option is D Patients are liable to suffer the same ailment repeatedly
If the patient suffers an ailment repeatedly for which he is not being given the drug more than one time, it could lead to problems, and thus denies the patient her right to health. This is the basic assumption made by the author. Hence, the correct answer is option (d).


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Q. A medicine is known to be 75% effective to cure a patient. If the medicine is given to 5 patients, what is the probability that at least one patient is curved by this medicine?
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Why do physicians prescribe diuretic drugs to patients with high blood pressure?


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That placebos can cure everything from dandruff to leprosy is well known. They have a long history of use by witch doctors, faith healers, and even modern physicians, all of whom refuse to admit their efficacy. Modern distribution techniques can bring this most potent of medicines to the aid of everyone, not just those lucky enough to receive placebos in a medical testing program.

Every drug tested would prove effective if special steps were not taken to neutralize the placebo effect. This is why drug tests give half the patients the new medication and half a harmless substitute. These tests prove the value of placebos because approximately five percent of the patients taking them are cured even though the placebos are made from substances that have been carefully selected to be useless.

Most people feel that the lucky patients in a drug test get the experimental drug because the real drug provides them a chance to be cured. (1) Yet analysis shows that patients getting the placebo may be the lucky ones because they may be cured without risking any adverse effects the new drug may have. Furthermore, the drug may well be found worthless and to have severe side effects. No harmful side effects result from placebos.

Placebos regularly cure more than five percent of the patients and would cure considerably more if the doubts associated with the tests were eliminated. Cures are principally due to the patient’s faith, (2) yet the patient must have doubts knowing that he may or may not be given the new drug, which itself may or may not prove to be an effective drug. Since he knows the probability of being given the true drug is about fifty percent, the placebo cure rate would be more than doubled by removing these doubts if cures are directly related to faith.

The actual curing power of placebos probably stems from the faith of the patient in the treatment. This suggests that cure rates in the ten percent range could be expected if patients are given placebos under the guise of a proven cure, even when patients know their problems are incurable.

It may take a while to reach the ten percent level of cure because any newly established program will not have cultivated the word-of-mouth advertising needed to insure its success. One person saying “I was told that my problem was beyond medical help, but they cured me,” can direct countless people to the treatment with the required degree of faith. Furthermore, when only terminal illnesses are treated, those not cured tell no one of the failure.

Unfortunately, placebo treatment centers cannot operate as non-profit businesses. The non-profit idea was ruled out upon learning that the first rule of public medicine is never to give free medicine. Public health services know that medicine not paid for by patients is often not taken or not effective because the recipient feels the medicine is worth just what it cost him. (3) Even though the patients would not know they were taking sugar pills, the placebos cost so little that the patients would have no faith in the treatment. Therefore, though it is against higher principles, treatment centers must charge high fees for placebo treatments. This sacrifice of principles, however, is a small price to pay for the greater good of the patients.

Q. According to the passage, when testing new drug medical researchers give half of the subjects the test drug and half a placebo because


Q. Assume that the chances of a patient having a heart attack are 40%. It is also assumed that a meditation and yoga course reduce the risk of heart attack by 30% and the prescription of certain drugs reduces its chances by 25%. At a time a patient can choose any one of the two options the patient selected at random suffers a heart attack. Find the probability that the patient followed a course of meditation and yoga?
Q. 32. Fixed dose drug combinations (FDCs), are combinations of two or more active drugs in a single dosage form. Consider the following statements with reference to FDCs:
1. FDCs are considered to be effective for elderly patients or patients suffering from multiple disorders.
2. FDCs are less economic than single ingredient drugs.
3. Its therapeutic efficacy has not been proved scientifically.
Which of the above statement(s) is/are correct?
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