Ethic Soup

Pox Parties and Chickenpox Lollipops: Dangerous Substitutes for Vaccinations

"Chickenpox" Copyright by EthicSoup.com

 

SOME PARENTS act as if they've never heard the old admonition "Don't take candy from a stranger." They're giving their kids pre-licked lollipops, infected with chickenpox and mailed to them by strangers they met on the Internet. Yikes!

Before there was a chickenpox vaccine, prior to 1995, parents sent their kids to 'pox parties,'  where moms would arrange play dates with infected children. Hopefully, the kids would catch varicella, the herpes virus that causes chicken pox, and develop immunity.

WANNA CHICKENPOX LOLLIPOP?

Now some parents are going to social media sites, like Facebook, and using the Internet to expose their kids to the disease. How? They pay other parents for lollipops infected with the chickenpox virus. For example, infected lollipops were recently advertised at $50, overnight delivery from Nashville, reports the New York Times.

Wow! At $50 a pop, I can see a kid sick with chicken pox, her hands in mittens so she won't scratch and leave terrible scars. She's in bed, next to a big box from which her Mom retrieves sucker-after-sucker, saying "Now lick this one, Honey."

 

Elderly in Emergency Room Get Less Pain Relief

 

The elderly who go to a hospital emergency room in pain are less likely to get medication for it than younger people in similar distress, reported in the Annals of Emergency Medicine.

An analysis of a seven-year national study of E.R. patient data concluded that of patients over 75 years old, who were in pain, only 49 percent were given pain medication -- compared to more than 65 percent of those under 75. The study involved information on more than 88,000 E.R. visits. The analysis did not include elderly people who were cognitively impaired or unable to report pain.

WHERE'S THE PAIN RELIEF?

There were no clear findings for the patient-age differences of the elderly receiving pain medication; however, researchers think one possible reason may be that emergency room personnel are concerned about adverse effects of pain medications for the elderly. Another explanation could be that E.R. personnel pay more attention to diagnosis in older patients and less attention to pain relief.

Placebos Are As Good As Drugs For Mild to Moderate Depression

There are millions of Americans who suffer with horrible, debilitating depression and millions who take antidepressants daily.

Antidepressants have been available since the 1950s. Still, unbelievably, few studies have focused directly on how the pills affect people with milder symptoms.

"After all these years -- and all those prescriptions -- you'd think we'd know everything there is to know about how antidepressants affect the people who take them," writes Alix Spiegel on National Public Radio's blog. 

MOST DEPRESSION IS MILD TO MODERATE 

In fact, almost 70 percent of depressed people on medication have moderate to mild symptoms. Why haven't we studied these folks?

"Because drug companies fund the vast majority of clinical trials, and obviously drug companies are interested in having their clinical trials show the efficacy of their antidepressant medications," Brett Deacon, a psychologist at the University Wyoming told NPR's All Things Considered.

A recent study finds that, for people with mild to moderate depression, taking an antidepressant is no better than swallowing a placebo. Pharmaceuticals versus sugar pills and sugar wins. 

AN ETHICAL CONUNDRUM

This presents us with an ethical conundrum.

How about doing right by the patients involved in research, the ethical obligation toward those who are randomly assigned to get a placebo?

Will the pharmaceutical manufacturers admit to the public that their drugs are only helpful for severe depression? Don't bet on it.

Will physicians stop prescribing the drugs and increase prescribing placebos ?

Who makes all the profit from placebos? The pharmacies or manufacturers? Numerous other studies have found that patients believe a medicine's value is evidenced by its cost. A drug that is cheap doesn't work nearly as well as an expensive drug, most of us think. The same applies to placebos.

Do the pharmacies or manufacturers split the profits from sugar pills with the prescribing doctors?

And the big one -- Is lying to a patient ethical -- Telling her that you're prescribing a real drug and withholding the fact that it's really a placebo?

Will any of the above-mentioned tell us the truth?

Pharma Crime: Pfizer Fined $2.3 Billion for Drug Fraud

  

"Pfizer Fraud" Copyright by Sharon McEachern

CHARGED WITH FRAUD, pharmaceutical giant Pfizer Inc. and a subsidiary have been fined $2.3 billion in what the Justice Department has called the largest health-care fraud settlement in U.S. history.

Pfizer is charged for illegally promoting drugs, including: Bextra, one of a group of painkillers which were pulled from the market in 2005 after reports of potential heart risks; Geodon, an antipsychotic; Zyvox, an antibiotic; and Lyrica, an anti-epileptic drug -- all named in a news release from the Justice Department, which also related that in the case of each drug Pfizer is accused of marketing the drugs for uses other than those approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. This practice is called "off-label" use.

The Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act stipulates that a pharmaceutical company  must specify the intended uses of a product in its new drug application to the FDA. After it's approved, the drug can not be marketed or promoted for any "off-label" uses. For example, Pfizer promoted Bextra for a number of uses and dosages not sanctioned by the FDA due to safety concerns, as reported in the Justice Dept's press release.

Part of this "landmark settlement" is an "expansive corporate integrity agreement,"  where Pfizer agrees to an arrangement with the Department of Health and Human Services' Office of Inspector General for "procedure and reviews" designed to prevent similar occurrences in the future. Good luck with that!

Cocaine in Red Bull's New Cola Causes German Ban

 

"OH, NO YOU DON'T" says Germany. "There's cocaine in that drink."

The Germans went and tested it. Who would've figured. The authorities in six German states ordered retailers to stop selling Red Bull Cola after finding traces of cocaine in the drink.  Surprise! My, but it must have shocked Red Bull execs to find out that the narcotic cocaine is an ingredient in their cola, which can't legally be put into food and drink.

Cocaine is illegal damn near everywhere in the world -- except in the Andes. (Think: Machu Picchu). While the removal of cocaine alkaloid is mandated by international anti-narcotics agencies around the world, up in the Andean region folks have chewed or brewed coca in tea to stave off hunger and exhaustion for centuries, reports TIME. So, it's okay for the Andean guys.

NO BULL -- GERMANY CHEWS ON NATIONAL BAN

For the rest of us, not so much. And now German officials may recommend a nation-wide ban. One such official, Gernhard Kuehnle is the head of the food safety department in the country's federal ministry for consumer protection. He told the German press last weekend that the Health Institute's "elaborate chemical process" examining Red Bull Cola found 0.13 micrograms of cocaine per can. Apparently it does not pose a serious health threat, but was enough to cause concern.

Hey, Hey, FDA, Whaddaya Say: Are E-Cigarettes Safe, Okay?

   

(Top Photo) Smoke in lungs: dangerous to your health   

(Bottom) No smoke: battery-powered, electronic cigarette 

What the hell is an e-cigarette?

Is it dangerous or safe?  

Is marketing the fake cigarette ethical?

And, where is the Food and Drug Administration on this?   Even though the FDA has been missing-in-inaction for a long time on a whole range of products and issues, it sounds as if they just might respond to this one.

WHAT IS AN E-CIGARETTE?

The e-cigarette, or "electronic cigarette," looks like a real cigarette, glows at its tip like a cigarette and contains nicotine like a cigarette. But it's not a cigarette -- it's a stainless-steel tube.

"When someone puffs on an e-cigarette, a computer-aided sensor activates a heating element that vaporizes a solution -- usually containing nicotine -- in the mouthpiece," reports San Jose Mercury News. "The resulting mist -- which comes in flavors such as chocolate and cherry -- can be inhaled. A light-emitting diode on the tip of the e-cigarette simulates the glow of burning tobacco. The device is powered by a rechargeable lithium-ion battery."

The e-cigarette was invented in China several years ago. "The Chinese consumed 2 trillion cigarettes in 2007," writes Dr. David Moore, a psychologist and chemical dependency professional, who writes for the New York Daily News. "In the first 11 months of last year, their tobacco sales were up 18 percent! The result was a health system overloaded with fatalities and weakened cardiopulmonary systems. Is it any wonder that China started and still leads the world in e-cigarette marketing?"

Price-Gouging Preemie Drug: FTC Sues Pharma Ovation

  

When it comes to saving a baby's life, price is no object.  Ovation Pharmaceuticals banked on that --literally.

The Federal Trade Commission has sued the drug maker for alleged price-gouging after Ovation cornered the market on two life-saving drugs for premature babies -- and then inflated the price by 1,300 percent.

In what the FTC calls "monopoly prices" and "unlawfully obtained profits," the drug called Indocin was jacked up in price from $36 to $500 per vial. How do you spell G-R-E-E-D?

The drug is for preemies with life-threatening heart defects. It repairs a heart blood vessel defect that occurs in some preterm-infants that can lead to congestive heart failure. For decades Indocin had been the treatment of choice for some 30,000 preemies born annually with this potentially fatal heart problem. Ovation's drugs are the only alternative to risky surgery for "patent ductus arteriosus" in which a blood vessel connecting two heart arteries fails to close," reports efluxmedia.com .

PRICE-GOUGING GREED

"Just when I thought I could not take any more outrageous greed!" said Dr.Toni Brayer in her blog Everything Health, voicing what so many feel today. "This type of price gouging and greed needs to be halted in its tracks. I can't imagine what defense Ovation will propose. It looks pretty clear that they purchased their only competitor and blackmailed the medical community into paying the price."

The NFL, Drugs, Google and Media Myopia : The Bumetanide Story

  What's "bumetanide?" That's what I asked, when I saw it was at the top of Google's most searched keywords list today. Google said it was seeing "volcanic" action on the word "bumetanide." Holy cow, what is going on that's so important to so many ? This is a really strange story. I don't know why I'm surprised.

First a definition: Bumetanide is a diuretic drug, commonly used to control fluids in the treatment of heart and kidney disease. It decreases the amount of water retained in the body by increasing urination, causing the kidneys to get rid of unneeded water and salt from the body.

So what's the big story? Hold  onto your helmet! I found well over 300 news stories about New Orleans Saints veterans Deuce McAllister and Will Smith, both of whom are reported to have violated the NFL steroids policy. Now that's an ethics story in and of itself. But that's not this ethic story.

The football players tested positive for bumetanide, described by sports media as "a water pill" and "the weight-loss diuretic." Diuretics can be used as masking agents because they dilute the urine and result in lower levels of the banned substance being excreted from the body, reports the Associated Press,  adding: "That can make it more difficult to detected banned substances."

No, that's not the important story about bumetanide. Not in my opinion. While I found some 318 news stories about (more) NFL players caught in what may be steroid use, I found only one news article about how the bumetanide drug may help change the lives of up to two billion people around the world.