[wussboy]

I think the ask was actually for an approved drug, taken briefly, that caused a delayed death in the person who was taking it. If we’re going to count prenatal effects, we can come up with thousands of examples. This is why pregnant women are always studied separately.

[tharkun__]

Let's take that apart:

    Are there any authorized or approved drugs that are taken over a short-term (say less than a month) that have been shown to cause long-term death?


    authorized or approved.

Check. Contergan was approved and used in 46 countries. Notably in East Germany there are no known cases of this, because "thalidomide was rejected by the Central Committee of Experts for the Drug Traffic in the GDR, and was never approved for use."

    taken over a short-term (say less than a month)

Check. As quoted before, taking Contergan past day 42 didn't harm the fetus and deformities seem to have started on day 21. Less than a month.

    cause long-term death

Check. Over the long term (>6 months) it caused death in 40% of the babies born.

Nowhere in there does it say to exclude any drugs than only cause direct death to the taker. Nor do I think should that matter. I do agree that pregnant women are studied separately precisely because the risks there are higher. To quote from the wikipedia article again:

    The Society of Toxicology of Canada was formed after the effects of thalidomide were made public, focusing on toxicology as a discipline separate from pharmacology. The need for the testing and approval of the toxins in certain pharmaceutical drugs became more important after the disaster.

[wussboy]

Sure. But that’s not what they meant. Can you name any drug that, when taken over a short course, has had long term detrimental effects to the person taking it?

[tharkun__]

It's debatable what someone meant or didn't mean, if they don't say it. I tend to go by what someone actually said. Especially on the internet (or writing in general) i.e. people you don't know, whose background you don't know, without intonation etc. There's very little to no information for interpretation.

Now you asked a new question. Fair enough. Unlike the previous question, where Contergan immediately jumped to my mind, for your question nothing jumps to mind. But google helped. I think you wanted to ask a different question, more like what I originally answered to, e.g.:

    Can you name any approved drug that, that when taken over a short course, can over the long term cause the death of the person taking it?

You did ask though:

    Can you name any drug that, when taken over a short course, has had long term detrimental effects to the person taking it?

Yes I can, for example: Heroin. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heroin

Let's take that apart:

    name any drug

Check. Heroin is a drug. It's even been prescribed as a pain killing opioid.

        The UK Department of Health's Rolleston Committee Report in 1926 established the British approach to diamorphine prescription to users, which was maintained for the next 40 years: dealers were prosecuted, but doctors could prescribe diamorphine to users when withdrawing. In 1964, the Brain Committee recommended that only selected approved doctors working at approved specialized centres be allowed to prescribe diamorphine and cocaine to users. The law was made more restrictive in 1968. Beginning in the 1970s, the emphasis shifted to abstinence and the use of methadone; currently, only a small number of users in the UK are prescribed diamorphine.

    taken over a short term

Check. Heroin is apparently way up there in addictiveness. After a very short period of time, you will be addicted (even if not like some people claim, after the very first use and regardless of dose or your own addiction susceptibility.

    However, contrary to Bayer's advertising as a "non-addictive morphine substitute," heroin would soon have one of the highest rates of addiction among its users.

Also https://web.archive.org/web/20100213101818/http://www.drugre... which curiously notes that nicotine is even more addictive than heroin. I'll not mention nicotine further here though, because the detrimental effect come from the other substances usually taken with it when ingested via tobacco as far as I am aware (tar).

    long term detrimental effects to the person taking it

Check. Detrimental effects of heroin are numerous. And given it's addictive very fast, even side effects that only turn up later, I would definitely include.

    Common side effects include respiratory depression (decreased breathing), dry mouth, drowsiness, impaired mental function, constipation, and addiction.[12] Side effects of use by injection can include abscesses, infected heart valves, blood-borne infections, and pneumonia.[12] After a history of long-term use, opioid withdrawal symptoms can begin within hours of the last use.

Not to mention the constant possibility of overdosing. Meaning death. The ultimate detrimental effect.

[wussboy]

I commend your ability to think outside the box, bringing up pregnancy and addiction as answers to the asked question.

So I’ll ask a third time, hoping that perhaps finally I can get you to the original asker’s intention:

Can you name any drug that when taken for only a short period of time, like this Covid drug surely would be, and is non addictive like this Covid drug surely is not, is harmful in the long term to the person who took it (assuming they are not pregnant as all of the people who would be allowed to take it would not be)?

[tharkun__]

While I do like this discussion I also wonder why addictive substances have to be excluded. I understand that you would like have the answer to the question be "no I don't". We can find all sorts exclusions and find a narrow path to an answer that says "no no, all drugs are always safe, see, if you only take them for a month you won't mysteriously die from exactly this 20 years from now". And while that is most probably true (and if it were true, probably hard to prove), the real answer to the question is: Yes, there medications that even if taken for a short period of time will be detrimental and harmful to you over the long term and heroin or morphine are perfect examples of this.

Remember all those war movies? I remember watching Vietnam war movies as a kid and one of the things I remember best is the use of morphine as _the_ field medicine.

Now we can argue that, especially in those times, it might be better to give a soldier that just lost a limb in the battlefield morphine than not to. It doesn't change the fact that

https://www.onceasoldier.org/veteran-ptsd-and-opioid-addicti...

    The VA and other reports acknowledge that physicians need better training to manage opioid treatment for veterans. Between 2001 and 2009, for example, the percentage of veterans receiving pain management with prescription narcotics increased from 17 percent to 24 percent. The number of opioid prescriptions written by military physicians more than quadrupled during that time.

[wussboy]

Full credit to you for this. My only quibble is that "narrow" should be "wide". But all of the rest of your points have been enjoyable to think about and hold a lot of important truth. I believe at the heart of it you have a concern for humans and their welfare that is to be rejoiced and encouraged. I hope you have a good weekend!