Pill that boosts productivity gaining favor, raising concerns among medical ethicists

September 5, 2008 By Steve Johnson

In a place like Silicon Valley, where career prospects often hinge on a person's intelligence and ability to work hellishly long hours, "brain doping" probably was inevitable.



Content from McClatchy-Tribune Information Services expires 90 days after original publication date. For more information about McClatchy-Tribune Information Services, please visit www.mctdirect.com .

Similar stories from PHYSorg:

4.5 /5 (32 votes)  

Filter


Move the slider to adjust rank threshold, so that you can hide some of the comments.


Display comments: newest first

drel
Sep 05, 2008

Rank: not rated yet
Using (abusing) a crutch like these pills may appear harmless until your body says ENOUGH! and your brain goes into "sleep-mode"...

... mean while your 7-series beamer or worse yet your crew cab pick-up crossed the centerline going 60mph and takes out your neighbors wife and kids.

Unfortunately instead of being summarily executed, you most likely will just get 6-months suspended and a few weekends community service (if that).

Get a life looser!
Catch
Sep 05, 2008

Rank: 3 / 5 (4)
Learn to spell loser.
aussiecarter
Sep 05, 2008

Rank: 5 / 5 (4)
People consume caffine during work, and caffine after work. Caffine is a drug that is accepted by society. What would it take for a new drug to be accepted into society? It would be very difficult for this to occur when people write the drug off as dangerous without much expereince with it.
Jayman
Sep 06, 2008

Rank: 4.5 / 5 (2)
I am a software developer and I absolutely
live on Modapro. It does not cause dependency
and I am able to do without it on the weekends.
But, on weekdays, it is a heaven-sent. I am
able to work longer and more productively.
Being in the wrong side of the thirties, I
am able to keep up with the 20-somethings
rather effortlessly. After 2 years on it,
I have experience no side-effects whatsoever.

Gozar
Sep 06, 2008

Rank: not rated yet
The makers of provigil really are stepping up their advertising campaign.
NanoStuff
Sep 07, 2008

Rank: 5 / 5 (1)
Summary: Ethicists believe it's unethical for people to make their own decisions. Meanwhile, awesome brain boosting pills are awesome.
Velanarris
Sep 08, 2008

Rank: not rated yet
Summary: Ethicists believe it's unethical for people to make their own decisions. Meanwhile, awesome brain boosting pills are awesome.


Yeah that's about it. Oh, and drel has forgone the pills leaving him incapable of spelling the word loser.
artful
Oct 14, 2008

Rank: not rated yet
Unlike Jayman who is only on the "wrong side of the thirties", i'm on the wrong side of the forties and see something like having the ability to schedule one really productive day of work every now and then to be really cool. I would also like to try it while painting to see if it allows me to paint for much longer periods in the studio. Question though: Just how does one approach a physician with a request for something like this? I would think that it would be hard to fake narcolepsy or the other known use cases. Someone is writing scripts because this stuff sure seems popular.
Rank 4.5 /5 (32 votes)
Tags

Relevant PhysicsForums posts

More news stories

Scientists strengthen memory by stimulating key site in brain

Ever gone to the movies and forgotten where you parked the car? New UCLA research may one day help you improve your memory.

Medicine & Health / Neuroscience

created 4 hours ago | popularity 5 / 5 (5) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Short fasting cycles work as well as chemotherapy in mice

Man may not live by bread alone, but cancer in animals appears less resilient, judging by a study that found chemotherapy drugs work better when combined with cycles of short, severe fasting.

Medicine & Health / Cancer

created 7 hours ago | popularity 4.9 / 5 (10) | comments 1 | with audio podcast

Tai Chi program helps Parkinson's disease patients

An Oregon Research Institute (ORI) exercise study conducted in four Oregon cities has shown significant benefits for patients with mild-to-moderate Parkinson's disease. In an original article published in the February 9, ...

Medicine & Health / Health

created 3 hours ago | popularity not rated yet | comments 0

Study finds MDs not always honest with patients

(AP) -- Trust your doctor? A survey finds that some doctors aren't always completely honest with their patients.

Medicine & Health / Health

created 4 hours ago | popularity not rated yet | comments 0

Drug costs, not volume, causes regional differences in Medicare drug spending

The cost of medications through Medicare's subsidized prescription drug program varies from region to region across the United States largely due to the use of more expensive brand-name drugs and not because of the amount ...

Medicine & Health / Health

created 4 hours ago | popularity not rated yet | comments 0 | with audio podcast


Astronomy team discovers nearby dwarf galaxy

(PhysOrg.com) -- A team led by UCLA research astronomer Michael Rich has used a unique telescope to discover a previously unknown companion to the nearby galaxy NGC 4449, which is some 12.5 million light years ...

Amasia: As next supercontinent forms, Arctic Ocean, Caribbean will vanish first

(PhysOrg.com) -- Geologists at Yale University have proposed a new theory to describe the formation of supercontinents, the epic process by which Earth’s major continental blocks combine into a single ...

Why are there so few fish in the Earth's oceans?

(PhysOrg.com) -- A Stony Brook University researcher has found that, contrary to popular belief, there are not plenty of fish in the sea.

Transparent iron? For the first time, an experiment shows that atomic nuclei can become transparent

At the high-brilliance synchrotron light source PETRA III, a team of DESY scientists headed by Dr. Ralf Röhlsberger has succeeded in making atomic nuclei transparent with the help of X-ray light. At the ...

Physicists build highly efficient 'no-waste' laser

A team of University of California, San Diego researchers has built the smallest room-temperature nanolaser to date, as well as an even more startling device: a highly efficient, "thresholdless" laser that ...

Most stretchable spider silk reported

The egg sac silk of the cocoon stalk of the cave spider Meta menardi is the most stretchable egg sac silk yet tested, according to a study published Feb. 8 in the open access journal PLoS ONE.