Last week's CNE blog was about almost-over-the-counter Viagra in Manchester. The trial involves having customers undergo a short consultation checking that there is no contraindications before they can buy the drug, and if they want to get a regular supply they will have to sign up for monitoring. This solution struck me as perhaps a way forward for prescribing enhancement drugs.
Having just doctors as gatekeepers will contribute to overloading the curative part of the health system with non-curative activity (which will be a problem as long as we do not have a free medical market). OTC enhancers will only work if they are known to be safe - something we will have to acquire a lot of epidemiology on. Having an intermediary level for drugs that are relatively safe yet not for everyone, linked to monitoring to refine knowledge, seems to be a good compromise as society begins to explore enhancement in more depth.
Posted by Anders3 at March 5, 2007 08:32 PM