More Vytorin Discussion

AdAge has been closely watching the results of the Vytorin news, including this article about pulling TV ads for Zetia and Vytorin. They had another great opinion piece about how this ordeal was essentially shaming the entire industry, but now that's only available to AdAge subscribers.

I know that I've had fun with this in class, as the proper management of this - from the advertising company's point of view - is extremely relevant to my course. I actually did this exact exercise in class about three months ago; the only difference was that Ortho Tri-Cyclen was the drug and the problem was increased blood pressure - much more than previously thought. Then one team of students had to talk about what would happen if they were managing Ortho, another had Yaz as their client, etc. It was a great exercise, they definitely got a lot out of it. I wonder how the results might change if I run it the same this semester, given the mess surrounding Vytorin...

In any event, the advertising trade press is closely watching this ordeal, and it's interesting to look at that coverage versus the more general media.

Kids Don't Like Clowns

I think I heard this story four times last week, but it's still interesting for those that haven't seen it yet. The results of a new study have demonstrated that kids don't like clowns, suggesting that clowns on hospital floors might not really ease kids' tension. NPR has good coverage of this here.

Competition Generates Diverse Ideas to Reach Young Men At Risk

From the RWJ website:

Young men today face enormous challenges—gangs, addiction, crime and mental health problems have put a generation of men at risk. To help young men overcome these challenges, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation has joined with Ashoka's Changemakers to host Young Men at Risk: Transforming the Power of a Generation, an online competition to develop the best approaches to help men navigate their way to a successful and healthy adulthood.

It sounds like this is an interesting competition that has already received a number of promising applications. The deadline for entries is January 23, 2008, head to the RWJ article or right to the Changemakers competition website.

Bad News for Zetia

The big news of the day was probably that clinical studies seem to show that Zetia doesn't lower cholesterol. This also affects Vytorin, which includes Zetia. One interesting line from the article:

Sales of the two drugs were $5 billion in 2007, and they are important contributors to Merck’s and Schering’s profits.

Ouch.

Given my own interests in health literacy, the first group that came to mind here were people that already have some problems with scientific literacy. For those individuals that can't fully grasp clinical trials (and all the assorted jargon that often accompanies reports of clinical trials), I can't imagine this news will do anything other than confuse them and/or lead them to trust science less.

The article also included this:

The trial covered 720 patients and lasted two years. While it was relatively small, cardiologists have been were eager to see its results because they have far less data on Zetia than on other cholesterol-lowering medicines.

I just thought that was interesting, as the "cardiologists have been were eager" line was in the original article. Nice editing.

Anyway, it'll be interesting to see how this plays out in the coming weeks, and what this might mean for the FDA, pharma companies, etc.

Rhetoric of Cochlear Implants

I wanted to pass along an interesting article by Blume¹ that I read on the way back from Toronto last night. It included an interesting history on the development of cochlear implants (CIs), the rhetoric surrounding the development of the "bionic ear," and the counter-rhetoric of the Deaf community.

For anyone interested in learning a bit more about the development of CIs - and how the medical, scientific, and Deaf communities responded - this article makes for a very interesting read. It could also provide a bit of insight into what might happen as medical science develops other "cures" that might not be completely welcomed by the patients targeted for treatment.

1. Blume, S. S. (1997). The Rhetoric and Counter-Rhetoric of a "Bionic" Technology. Science, Technology, & Human Values, 22(1), 31-56.

Teen Drug Usage

It feels good to be back after a little holiday break... Of course, time away meant that I fell behind on a lot of my favorite health-oriented podcasts, so I've been going through a lot the last few days. Out of all of them, one of the most remarkable statistics came from a NIH podcast about teen drug use. While a lot of the stats in the report were positive (smoking is down, etc.), one of the areas of concern was the number of teens abusing prescription drugs. The one that stuck out for me was that something like 10% of high school seniors have taken Vicodin without a prescription.

I'm going to have to find the real report, because I'm curious how these teens are getting the Vicodin. Is it prescriptions they received? Friends or family members? Orders from the Internet? Fighting abuse of prescription drugs by teens will certainly be a tricky problem, but the method by which they receive the drugs will matter a lot to any campaigns/interventions designed to address the problem.

Anyway, I thought that was a pretty surprising number, I'm curious to see what other surprises my backlog of podcasts has waiting for me...