PrepTest 158, Section 3, Question 9
Consumer advocate: Even relatively minor drug-related interactions can(42 more words not shown)
Which one of the following,(8 more words not shown)
- AProviding information on(12 more words not shown)
- BMany drugs have(7 more words not shown)
- CProviding information about(12 more words not shown)
- DCurrent research is(10 more words not shown)
- EPharmacists usually draw(10 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
The example gives us a reason to want patients informed. Does it also show that the government needs to require a warning about every known interaction?
In the passage's aspirin example, the drug doesn't work as intended when taken with fruit juice. Someone who doesn't know that might remain uncomfortable or take more aspirin than necessary. I can see the benefit of warning that person.
But perhaps companies already provide the information. We haven't been told why a government mandate is needed. We might also ask how a label would handle an enormous list of interactions. Would the proposed rule be workable, and would it improve what patients actually understand?
What we’re looking for
We're asked to weaken the recommendation. I'd look for a reason the mandate is unnecessary or a problem created by requiring all this information. We can accept the value of some warnings without assuming that adding every possible known warning is automatically better.
Working the answers
- ACorrect
This identifies a cost of the extra information: warnings about minor interactions can draw attention away from serious ones. Imagine an important warning getting lost in a long list of relatively minor concerns. More information could then leave a patient less attentive to the risk that most needs attention.
The advocate has explained how minor warnings might help but hasn't considered what they might displace. A doesn't deny the benefit in the aspirin example. It gives us a reason to doubt that requiring all known interactions to be listed would be the best policy.
- B
Aspirin is an example, not the entire subject of the recommendation. Other drugs could have fewer interactions while their remaining interactions still mattered to patients. Comparing how many documented interactions different drugs have doesn't challenge the reason offered for notifying consumers.
- C
Negligible price increases make cost less of an objection to the recommendation. This doesn't show that the rule is necessary or free of other problems, but it removes a possible drawback rather than supplying a reason to oppose it.
- D
The proposed rule covers known interactions. Companies can disclose the interactions that have been identified even if research has not discovered every interaction that exists. D would matter more to a demand to list unknown risks too, but that isn't what the advocate recommends.
- E
This suggests printed warnings can reach patients because pharmacists point them out. It doesn't establish our initial possibility that companies already provide all the information the proposed rule would require. Drawing attention to existing warnings is different from showing that no additional warnings are needed.
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