Advertising or Educating?

This article on the "hidden influences that sway our medical decisions" examines how the presentation of evidence in advertisements for drug treatments affects what patients believe about the treatments. It cites two studies which clearly show that current drug ads do not effectively educate patients—but they do sell more drugs.

In one study a group viewed actual drug ads, and nearly two-thirds of the group overestimated the drug effectiveness: "They believed it was 10 times more effective than it actually was"! But another group was shown ads with information clearly presented in a simple "drug-facts box." Three-quarters of this group "correctly assessed the actual benefits of the treatment."

This study shows us a lot about how presentation of evidence can affect an argument. It appears that different arrangements of the same evidence can lead the audience to very different conclusions. It also suggests an interesting research topic for Unit 3. How should drug advertisements be regulated? Should they be designed to educate patients, or to simply sell product?

Disease Priorities

This editorial on "Disease Priorities" from the journal Nature makes the argument that governmental health organizations should focus on non-communicable diseases (NCD) as a research priority in the near future, since NCD's have been a major cause of death in recent years. This would be an interesting controversy to research: How should health organizations determine their research priorities? This author believes that fatality rates should determine the focus. But many other positions are possible: research should focus on diseases most likely to spread; research should focus on diseases that effect young and middle-aged people; research should focus on diseases that have the biggest impact on quality of life.

Reforming Drug Patents

This editorial on "Patent Medicine" from the journal Nature describes some recently passed reforms to drug patent regulations in the US. The author believes that these reforms will better protect legitimate drug-makers and obstruct the questionable practice of "filing broad patents, then suing those who use similar technologies" — a practice which seems to block the advance of drug research.

This might be an interesting research topic for Unit 3. This is a timely and complex controversy: How should drug research be funded and regulated?

Good Germs

In The Trillions of Microbes That Call Us Home—and Help Keep Us Healthy, Michael Tennessen reports on research being done at Duke University Medical Center on the trillion of microscopic organisms that live in the human body, with the hope that balancing and exploiting that ecosystem (known as the human microbiome) could be a treatment alternative to antibiotics in the future.

Maybe in the future, germs won't have such a bad reputation.