QDIS Blog

As you may have noticed I’ve had some time to get caught up on programs I tivo’ed. Another program I really enjoyed was Nova’s “Absolute Zero: The Conquest of Cold” which you can watch online for free.

I’ve always been a big fan of Nova and it is on my season pass on my tivo. My only disappointment was how it ended and I won’t ruin it for anyone who hasn’t seen it but thought they could have done more. Then I find out there is going to be another follow on called “Absolute Zero: The Race for Absolute Zero”. I’m hoping my disappointment will be cured with this next episode. It is set to air on Jan 15 at 8 pm at least according to the PBS website.

I highly recommend this Nova episode for anyone with even a passing interest in science. They did an excellent job of covering the history of the study of cold and even though I’ve been a life long scientists, I still learned something, especially about the first use of “air conditioning”.

I am constantly amazed at how little knowledge some of my fellow scientist have of the history of science Many do not seem to be at all interested in the historical aspects of science but I think you can learn a lot about science itself and how it interfaces with society by understanding where we come from. A great example of the history of science not being taught in the area of chemistry (my special area of interest) is the program “Forgotten Genius - Percy Julian“. Although I have taken a course on the history of chemistry and read a couple of books about the history of chemistry and had never heard of Percy Julian. You can also view this program online for free and read a lot of other information on this black chemist and his accomplishments.

I always enjoy these sort of science and history related shows and this reminds me a lot of the Connections series with James Burke that the BBC did several years ago. I really wish TLC of Discover would re-air those episodes. You can still get them on DVD but they are expensive; $149 for 5 DVD ten programs. Connections 2 is also available for the same cost but it doesn’t look like Connections 3 is available.

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I Tivo’ed Frontline’s “The Medicated Child” recently and finally got around to watching it the other night. This is a follow up from an episode they did on this back in 2001. You can watch and read about it online. It was somewhat disturbing at parts especially when they mentioned a young child who was on several atypical anti-psychotics at the age of four! Here are some of the interesting points brought up:

1. There has been a 4,000% increase in diagnosis of psychiatric problems in young children over the last ten years

2. Although doctors do not agree about bipolar in young children many kids are being diagnosed as being bipolar at ages as young as four years old.

3. There is a growing number of strip mall places offering “brain scans” looking at blood flow to the brain to give a diagnosis. The company featured was co-founded by a social worker and she was the one featured giving the family the diagnosis of the problem. To me this edges on the verge of giving medical advice but not being a medical doctor.

4. In one case they highlighted it was teachers who told the parents their child had ADHD. I know teachers and I do not envy their job but I think suggesting an actual diagnosis is inappropriate.

5. Another big problem mentioned only in passing on the program was that many of these children are being treated by family pediatricians and not by child psychiatrists.

I’m not always a fan of highlighting individual cases which may or may not be typical. However, these do pull on our heart strings and it does highlight how desperate these families become when dealing with “the problem child”. I truly feel for these parents who are trying everything to help their child but nothing seems to work. Just take a look at the discussion page and read what some of these folks have gone through. This situation is what leads to some of these snake oil salesmen mentioned in point 3 above.

Part of the problem is the whole quick fix attitude especially in the US and the resulting expectation (re-inforced by the pharmaceutical industry) that a few pills can solve all your problems. I have always believed that in the case of mental issues that medication and therapy together are much more beneficial than drugs along.

I really liked the program and highly recommend it. You can watch it for free online and they also have lot of information and further interviews with experts here. There is also a Parents Guide.

I personally look forward to the day when we can run a blood test or do a brain scan and come up with a definitive diagnosis and be able to confidently prescribe medications that will solve the problem >90% of the time. Unfortunately, I don’t know if this will occur in my lifetime. This is one situation where I truly hope I am wrong.

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The subject of pharma spending on R&D versus Marketing is one that comes up frequently. Recently FierceBiotech has had an article on this.

Drug industry spends nearly twice as much on marketing than on research and development - FierceBiotech - Biotechnology Articles, Biotech Industry News, FDA Approval News:

Here is the link to the PLoS Medicine journal they refer to.

PLoS Medicine - The Cost of Pushing Pills: A New Estimate of Pharmaceutical Promotion Expenditures in the United States

It makes for some interesting reading. I personally think that there tends to be a discussion more on what should or should not be included as “marketing expenses” and the big picture tends to get overlooked. Maybe this is the tactic that is being used to avoid talking about the real issue.

The article does a good job I feel of at least explaining how they came up with their numbers. I’m sure there will be debate on what they decided to include and some of their assumptions but the very fact that it confirms the suspicions of the public will mean it will be readily accepted.

Their figure is $57.5 billion spent on promotion or 24.4% of every dollar versus $31.5 billion for R&D or 13.4%. THis means there is almost twice as much (1.8 actually) spent on promotion over R&D.

Here is the conclusion from that article.

From this new estimate, it appears that pharmaceutical companies spend almost twice as much on promotion as they do on R&D. These numbers clearly show how promotion predominates over R&D in the pharmaceutical industry, contrary to the industry’s claim. While the amount spent on promotion is not in itself a confirmation of Kefauver’s depiction of the pharmaceutical industry, it confirms the public image of a marketing-driven industry and provides an important argument to petition in favor of transforming the workings of the industry in the direction of more research and less promotion.

The article make the point that according to their figures the industry spends twice as much on promotion as it does on R&D. This will be controversial since it is counter to the common claim made by the pharmaceutical industry and confirms some of the perceptions of the man on the street.

I personally feel and have stated here several times that the industry as a whole does not seem to take seriously the perceptions on the street and the industry’s very actions taken to counter some of these perceptions only serves to reinforce some of those negative images out there. The industry seems to forget that perception matters and can be very damaging.

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