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Thursday, 21 June 2012
Call for papers to a special issue on New Media and Risky Behavior of Children and Young People: Ethics and Policy Implications
Just a short note to inform about a call for papers to a coming special issue of the journal Public Health Ethics, to be guest-edited by myself and my colleague Karl Persson on a topic that brings together issues actualised by complex ethics and policy challenges in the light of increased knowledge about how people's health-related behavior is influenced by their media consumption, the uncertain moral, legal and political standing of children and young people, and the rapid development of a new media landscape that radically reshapes the opportunities of families, civil society, public institutions and governments to control how children's and young people's health and well-being are influenced by their media habits.
Deadline for submissions is january 1, 2013 and more info on the topic as well as instructions for authors can be found here. If you know any people involved in public health research, media studies, applied ethics, law or political theory or similar areas, please tell them about this opportunity!
The initiation and work on this special issue is a direct outcome of the project Alcopop-TV Culture, undertaken in collaboration with the School of Law at the University of Central Lancashire and funded by the Daphne III program of the European Commission. More information about this project can be found here.
Otherwise, alas, I am still on part-time sick-leave and an adjusted work-schedule. However, the situation is steadily progressing for the better, so hopefully, I will be back and posting more regularly from this fall and on.
Saturday, 12 May 2012
Senate Probe into Pharma Sponsoring of US Bioethics Center
The last few days, a buzz in the world of bioethics has been about the inclusion into a US Senate probe into the ties between the pain-killer pharma industry and various "medical" and patient interest groups, of the Center for Practical Bioethics, to quote their webpage, "a nonprofit, free-standing and independent organization". The CPB is particularly known in the US for its direct outreach and activism visavis politicians, health care institutions and the medical establishment - not least in the area of end of life and palliative care.
The probe specifically targets the possible ways in which painkiller producing pharma companies, among which are giant Johnson & Johnson, via financial donations and in other ways, have had the mentioned groups - among them CPB - inspire and/or promote "misleading information about narcotic pain-killers". In short: the suspicion is that the companies have paid the organisations money to play up the reasons for using opiate based painkillers (e.g., morphine) or palliative meds that function like opiates, while playing down the salient negative side-effects and risks of such drugs. The background of the probe is said to be "an epidemic of accidental deaths and addiction resulting from the increased sale and use of powerful narcotic painkillers.".
The tie to CPB is thereby established by its well-known and long-term advocacy of effective palliative care and pain-relief. The center's founder Myra Christopher holds the Kathleen M. Foley Chair in Pain and Palliative Care at CPB, sponsored by the company Purdue Pharma, manufacturer of OxyContin and other palliative drugs. According to the Kansas City Star, CPB is well known for its ties to Purdue Pharma as well as several other pharma companies:
Also The Washington Post has reported about the probe, and a longer version of that article can be read here. A particularly fishy part of the story expanded on there is that, as the probe was announced, The American Pain Foundation, self-described as "the nation’s largest organization for pain patients", and one of the organisations targeted by the probe, announced its own shut-down due to "irreparable economic circumstances". From the bioethics and CPB angle, this becomes extra uncomfortable, since Myra Christopher has held honorary positions in APF.
Further details about some publications/reports of Christopher that have had a role in advocating expanded use of strong painkillers, or to play down the ethical importance of, e.g. addiction risks or calling into question routines for monitoring patients who are on painkillers for such risks, can be found in the second half of the Kansas City Star article, which also contains comment by bioethics researchers Carl Elliott and Summer Johnson McGee.
Both of these hold out that the notion of pain and suffering as a health problem in its own right is fully defensible one. In consequence, pain can motivate medication that brings various health risks – just as risk of dysfunction or death can. However, the Senate probe does not seem to question this general point. Both Johnson McGee and Elliott also point to the practical problems created by a supposed academic and independent institution advocating policies of great financial benefit to certain parties while, at the same time, being funded by these very parties. My own take is that, even if the money does not lead to outright and calculated intellectual dishonesty or fraudulent behaviour, human psychology has to be taken into account. The money arrives because the funding party likes what one is saying and as one becomes increasingly dependent on the financial support, one will (like it or not, conscious or not) become less and less likely to say something else.
Christopher is reported as insisting that the money from Purdue Pharma always has arrived with "no strings attached". It remains to be seen if the Senate probe will unveil information consistent with that claim or not. But even if it did, that does not take away the problem described above, and to me, the problem with CPB financial dependence on the pharma industry grows as the quote hints that Christopher does not realise this elementary point.
The probe specifically targets the possible ways in which painkiller producing pharma companies, among which are giant Johnson & Johnson, via financial donations and in other ways, have had the mentioned groups - among them CPB - inspire and/or promote "misleading information about narcotic pain-killers". In short: the suspicion is that the companies have paid the organisations money to play up the reasons for using opiate based painkillers (e.g., morphine) or palliative meds that function like opiates, while playing down the salient negative side-effects and risks of such drugs. The background of the probe is said to be "an epidemic of accidental deaths and addiction resulting from the increased sale and use of powerful narcotic painkillers.".
The tie to CPB is thereby established by its well-known and long-term advocacy of effective palliative care and pain-relief. The center's founder Myra Christopher holds the Kathleen M. Foley Chair in Pain and Palliative Care at CPB, sponsored by the company Purdue Pharma, manufacturer of OxyContin and other palliative drugs. According to the Kansas City Star, CPB is well known for its ties to Purdue Pharma as well as several other pharma companies:
...as recently as last month, Purdue was a leading sponsor of the center’s annual dinner and symposium, contributing $25,000 of the $280,000 that the event raisedMyra Christopher is one of the experts mentioned by name in the letter announcing the Senate probe.
Also The Washington Post has reported about the probe, and a longer version of that article can be read here. A particularly fishy part of the story expanded on there is that, as the probe was announced, The American Pain Foundation, self-described as "the nation’s largest organization for pain patients", and one of the organisations targeted by the probe, announced its own shut-down due to "irreparable economic circumstances". From the bioethics and CPB angle, this becomes extra uncomfortable, since Myra Christopher has held honorary positions in APF.
Further details about some publications/reports of Christopher that have had a role in advocating expanded use of strong painkillers, or to play down the ethical importance of, e.g. addiction risks or calling into question routines for monitoring patients who are on painkillers for such risks, can be found in the second half of the Kansas City Star article, which also contains comment by bioethics researchers Carl Elliott and Summer Johnson McGee.
Both of these hold out that the notion of pain and suffering as a health problem in its own right is fully defensible one. In consequence, pain can motivate medication that brings various health risks – just as risk of dysfunction or death can. However, the Senate probe does not seem to question this general point. Both Johnson McGee and Elliott also point to the practical problems created by a supposed academic and independent institution advocating policies of great financial benefit to certain parties while, at the same time, being funded by these very parties. My own take is that, even if the money does not lead to outright and calculated intellectual dishonesty or fraudulent behaviour, human psychology has to be taken into account. The money arrives because the funding party likes what one is saying and as one becomes increasingly dependent on the financial support, one will (like it or not, conscious or not) become less and less likely to say something else.
Christopher is reported as insisting that the money from Purdue Pharma always has arrived with "no strings attached". It remains to be seen if the Senate probe will unveil information consistent with that claim or not. But even if it did, that does not take away the problem described above, and to me, the problem with CPB financial dependence on the pharma industry grows as the quote hints that Christopher does not realise this elementary point.
Tuesday, 13 March 2012
Dodgy Stem-Cell Firm CellTex tries to Bully Critical Bioethicist into Silence
Just a short note on this, because it is important. Otherwise, I'm on sick-leave and will post sparsely for a while.
Texas based adult stem cell company CellTex tries to bully bioethics professor Leigh Turner into retracting a letter that he sent to FDA, urging the authority to look into if not the operations of CellTex violate federal US regulation on the licensing of pharmaceuticals and equivalent products (such as stem cells for clinical use). The letter is now streamed online for easy inspection.
CellTex was recently in focus in Nature due to alleged unethical use of unlicensed stem-cell treatments, and its recruitment and almost as quick loss of prominent bioethics professor Glenn McGee as its own in-house consultant, a process in turn provoking waves due to McGee's ties to the management of a leading ethics journal (see my last post of the latter affair here).
Further comments on CellTex's move on Turner can be found here and here. A general comment on the bully tactics of dodgy stem cell firms in the US can be found here. For my own part, I must confess myself amazed at how perfectly CellTex conforms to the analogy to the quackery Burzynzki Clinic that I made in my first posting. This - trying to intimidate bloggers and critics by threatening lawsuits - is exactly what the people behind the Burzynski scam uses as last resort when criticism becomes too hot to handle (see here and here and here). But in the CellTex case, there is a further twist. For what Turner has done is simply his job as bioethics scholar and citizen: He has contacted the appropriate state authority in light of worries over the legality of a commercial operation coming out of him analysing the practice of CellTex as a bioethicist. He has not declared the operation of CellTex illegal, he has simply asked FDA to look closely into the matter and mentioned a few reason for initiating such a probe. So no way that this will ever reach a court of law, and almost as unlikely that charges will actually be filed against Turner. This is pure bullying and harassment tactics meant to awake fear and create silence.
But, hey, CellTex, you know what?! This backfires badly and does nothing else than expose your own fear! The response to Turner's criticism is clear evidence that leading people inside CellTex are seriously scared of what an FDA probe would demonstrate. The more the reason for FDA to make a move, don't you think?
Texas based adult stem cell company CellTex tries to bully bioethics professor Leigh Turner into retracting a letter that he sent to FDA, urging the authority to look into if not the operations of CellTex violate federal US regulation on the licensing of pharmaceuticals and equivalent products (such as stem cells for clinical use). The letter is now streamed online for easy inspection.
CellTex was recently in focus in Nature due to alleged unethical use of unlicensed stem-cell treatments, and its recruitment and almost as quick loss of prominent bioethics professor Glenn McGee as its own in-house consultant, a process in turn provoking waves due to McGee's ties to the management of a leading ethics journal (see my last post of the latter affair here).
Further comments on CellTex's move on Turner can be found here and here. A general comment on the bully tactics of dodgy stem cell firms in the US can be found here. For my own part, I must confess myself amazed at how perfectly CellTex conforms to the analogy to the quackery Burzynzki Clinic that I made in my first posting. This - trying to intimidate bloggers and critics by threatening lawsuits - is exactly what the people behind the Burzynski scam uses as last resort when criticism becomes too hot to handle (see here and here and here). But in the CellTex case, there is a further twist. For what Turner has done is simply his job as bioethics scholar and citizen: He has contacted the appropriate state authority in light of worries over the legality of a commercial operation coming out of him analysing the practice of CellTex as a bioethicist. He has not declared the operation of CellTex illegal, he has simply asked FDA to look closely into the matter and mentioned a few reason for initiating such a probe. So no way that this will ever reach a court of law, and almost as unlikely that charges will actually be filed against Turner. This is pure bullying and harassment tactics meant to awake fear and create silence.
But, hey, CellTex, you know what?! This backfires badly and does nothing else than expose your own fear! The response to Turner's criticism is clear evidence that leading people inside CellTex are seriously scared of what an FDA probe would demonstrate. The more the reason for FDA to make a move, don't you think?
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