Drug irrational

Irrational Approach This approach is the historical method of discovering and developing drugs. It involves empirical observations of the pharmacological effects from the screening of many chemical compounds, mainly those from natural products. The active component that gives rise to the observed effects is isolated. The chemical formula is determined, and modifications are made to improve its properties. This approach has yielded many drugs available today. 

There are two main approaches to discovering small molecule drugs the irrational approach or the more recent structured rational approach. Antisense, RNA interference, and chiral drugs are other drug discovery methodologies. 

Figure 3.1 The basic steps of the irrational drug discovery process.

The discovery of small molecule drugs can be separated into the irrational and rational approaches. 

Describe the irrational approach to drug discovery and provide examples of drugs discovered using this approach. 

The Office of Fiealth Economics has also published a review entitled What are My Chances Doctor which takes into account not only treatment by drugs but also the hazards of surgery. People perceive risk in many different ways that would seem to the objective scientist alarmingly irrational. The distinction between risk and hazard has been nicely illustrated by Ferner (Figure 15.1), who has defined risk as the probability that a particular adverse outcome occurs during a given quantum of exposure to a hazard. ... 

Lack of access to medicines and inappropriate doses result in serious morbidity and mortality, particularly for childhood infections and chronic diseases, such as hypertension, diabetes, epilepsy and mental disorders. Inappropriate use and over-use of medicines waste resources - often out-of-pocket payments by patients - and result in significant patient harm in terms of poor patient outcomes and adverse drug reactions. Furthermore, over-use of antimicrobials is leading to increased antimicrobial resistance and non-sterile injections to the transmission of hepatitis, HIV/AIDS and other blood-borne diseases. Finally, irrational over-use of medicines can stimulate inappropriate patient demand, and lead to reduced access and attendance rates due to medicine stock-outs and loss of patient confidence in the health system. 

Focused drug use evaluation (drug utilization review) can be done to identify problems concerning the use of specific medicines or the treatment of specific diseases, particularly in hospitals. The qualitative methods employed in social science (e.g. focus group discussion, in-depth interviews, structured observation and structured questionnaires), can be used to investigate the motives underlying irrational use. All data collected should be used to design interventions and to measure the impact of those interventions on medicine use. 

Wayne H. Psychoactive drugs of misuse rationalising the irrational. Lancet 2007 369 972. 

Some would argue that drug discovery through screening provides the irrational counterpart to rational drug design. This remark is unjustifiably harsh and is somewhat... 

Adverse drugs reactions are not rare and have increased in number, which may be due to irrational use of multiple drug therapy, availability of most of the drugs as OTC (over the counter) i.e. without prescription and self medication by the patients. 

The pharmacodynamic interactions are relatively common in practice, but they can be minimized if the interactions are anticipated and appropriate precautions are taken by avoiding irrational and unnecessary drugs combination. 

We may distinguish two questions regarding addiction and choice. First, once individuals are addicted, does the condition affect their capacity for (rational) choice behavior Second, do individuals become addicted as a result of (possibly rational) choice Even assuming that addicts are irrational or reward insensitive, their state of addiction could still be the outcome of a rational choice, if the costs implied by irrationality or reward insensitivity were anticipated from the outset, on a par with medical risks and other harmful consequences of drug use. 

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