Ohio Voters Prefer Raising Tobacco Tax to Raiding Tobacco Endowment to Fund Stimulus

I thought this was an interesting follow-up to the post from a couple days ago about tobacco taxes and economic stimulus plans in Ohio. From the RWJ summary:

As the Ohio Legislature acts to raid the tobacco prevention fund in the state, a new survey released today shows that nearly two-thirds of Ohio voters support a 75-cent increase in the state cigarette tax, with even greater support for increasing the tax on other tobacco products, to help fund the proposed economic stimulus package and fully fund Ohio's tobacco prevention efforts. The poll also found that, by a nearly two-to-one margin, voters prefer paying for the stimulus package with a cigarette tax increase rather than by taking money from the Ohio tobacco prevention fund, as Gov. Ted Strickland and legislative leaders have proposed.

The full story is online here.

Trying Times at the FDA

I thought this recent opinion piece in the New England Journal of Medicine, titled Trying Times at the FDA — The Challenge of Ensuring the Safety of Imported Pharmaceuticals, was a pretty good look at the issues facing the FDA. For those with an interest in pharma or the government's role in public health, this should be right up your alley.

This is particularly true when it comes to the author's proposed solutions for addressing these concerns, including increasing the fees paid by pharma companies to fund the drug approval process. Another option is to increase the responsibility of pharma companies:

The expectation that FDA approval can guarantee drug safety is naive, since drug trials can never uncover all risks. No drug is completely safe for everyone, nor are people entitled to drugs that are entirely safe. Rather, patients and physicians are entitled to know a drug's risks in order to weigh those risks against its expected benefits. FDA approval should not be interpreted as signaling an absence of risk.

Plenty of interesting information and ideas in this article, it's worth a read.

Real Men Wear Gowns

There's a new campaign running from AHRQ encouraging men to undergo preventive health screenings. Print, TV, radio, and online ads will direct men to Real Men Wear Gowns. Those interested can take a look at all the ads on the Ad Council website here.

This is obviously an important issue, and the website looks to have a lot of good information. So I applaud the efforts of AHRQ, the Ad Council, and McCann Erickson Detroit.

That said, I wonder about the research/insights that led to this particular campaign. When I think of that kind of gown, I tend to feel like something has already gone wrong and you're sick/in the hospital; I don't necessarily associate a gown like that with preventive health screening, as I can't recall ever wearing a gown like that when going to the doctor for a routine check-up. That might be a generational thing, though, so older men in their target audience might not have this disconnect...

Off the top of my head I'm not sure how I would approach the problem, of course. In any event, it's an interesting effort and I'll be curious to see what the results end up being.

A Win-Win Solution for Ohio's Health and Economy

There is a new report out from RWJ that looks really interesting, particularly given the economic challenges facing many state governments. It suggests that Ohio should raise tobacco tax rates to fund a state-level economic stimulus package. This would have multiple benefits of stimulating the economy, avoid raiding the state's Tobacco Prevention Foundation, and decrease usage of tobacco. The introduction of the report is here, a PDF of the full report is also available here.

NIH: Public Comment on Development of a Funding Opportunity Announcement on Highly Innovative Tactics to Interrupt Transmission of HIV

This came along in the latest NIH newsletter, and I figured spreading the news could be somewhat useful. From the announcement:

NIAID is seeking input from the scientific community regarding novel research topic areas and approaches that could be exploited to develop highly innovative tactics to interrupt transmission of HIV. The information obtained from responses to this RFI will aid the Division of AIDS (DAIDS), NIAID, in developing a future Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) for applications that aim to stimulate discovery, design and early preclinical evaluation of highly innovative, risky but rational approaches that could provide long-term protection from acquiring HIV infection. Opinions from junior investigators and new faculty are particularly encouraged.

For more information, the RFI is available here.

Brand Medicine

A couple days ago I finished reading Brand Medicine, which provided a interesting range of perspectives on the importance of branding in the pharmaceutical industry. It's pretty easy to find a range of perspectives in the academic literature on any and all sides of the debate surrounding direct-to-consumer (DTC) advertising of prescription drugs, of course. Brand Medicine provided a different perspective, that of the advertising agency, on DTC advertising of prescription and over-the-counter (OTC) drugs from around the world.

The book was published in 2001, so a few of the topics covered feel a little dated now - particularly regarding regulations of DTC/OTC advertising in the U.S. That aside, there is some really useful information here to help get a better understanding of how advertising agencies work for pharma clients, the role that branding can have in a drug withstanding generic competition, etc.

I'd definitely recommend this book for anyone with an interest in the marketing and branding of prescription and OTC drugs. It covers some aspects of pharma marketing that probably don't receive much/enough attention in the academic literature (designing bottles for the elderly, name selection, box design, etc.), so I think Brand Medicine has a lot to offer both academics and advertising professionals.

2nd Annual National Conference on Health Communication, Marketing, and Media

This conference will be August 12-14, 2008, in Atlanta Georgia. From the CDC announcement:

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is pleased to announce the second Annual National Conference on Health Communication, Marketing and Media. This conference is intended for knowledgeable practitioners and academics working in health communication, marketing and media and will feature plenary and keynote speakers. This conference will provide a forum for collegial dialogue about research and practice within and across these disciplines. The conference is an excellent opportunity to meet with colleagues and shape the future of health communication and marketing practice.

For more information or to submit an abstract before the deadline on April 18th, head to http://www.cdc.gov/HealthMarketing/conference2008-abstracts.htm.

Brain Images Make Inaccurate Science News Trustworthy

I thought this episode of the Scientific American 60-Second Psych podcast was really interesting, that colorful brain images included in an article make it appear more scientific and trustworthy. This isn't exactly surprising, of course, but I think it speaks to the faith that a lot of people put in science - and why junk science can convince people of all sorts of things if it's done with enough colorful images and scientific-looking diagrams.

Legal Shield for Drug Makers

There is a great article in The New York Times this morning about Johnson & Johnson arguing that because the FDA approved the Ortho Evra patch they can't be sued for problems related to women using the patch. This would create a legal shield for pharma companies.

This is an interesting article for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that it looks like J&J knew there might be some problems with the patch before the FDA ever approved it. If that's the case, I don't think they should really be able to use FDA approval as a legal shield. (Of course, I'm not a lawyer, but that just seems like common sense.)

Beyond that, the most interesting details of the article (to me) were related to the problems that the FDA faces in regulating drugs and pharma companies. I think the general public reading this article wouldn't exactly have an increase in confidence that the FDA can adequately protect the public... Very interesting article, definitely worth a look.

Weight and Dental Health Among Kids

A few weeks ago I spent time in a brainstorming session figuring out the St. David's Health Foundation Dental Program might be able to use their access to schools to help combat childhood obesity. It was a great meeting (and how often is that the case?), with a lot of interesting ideas on how their existing partnerships and access to kids could put them in a unique position to do some great work on childhood obesity interventions.

That meeting is probably the only reason this story from WebMD caught my attention, about how kids' weight affects their dental health. The original study was in Community Dentistry & Oral Epidemiology, with the research mostly raising more questions than it answered.