Drug Marketing Increases Risk of Illness, Study Finds — Commercial Alert

Steve Lambert — Fri, 25 Feb 2011 21:50:19 +0000

The more widely drug companies market a drug, the less many users of the drug tend to benefit from its use and the more likely they are be harmed by it, a new report finds. Researchers Donald Light, PhD, of the UMDNJ-School of Osteopathic Medicine and Howard Brody, MD, of the University of Texas Medical Branch call their finding the Inverse Benefit Law, and describe it in a paper published online in the American Journal of Public Health.

“The Inverse Benefit Law means that the more widely a drug is marketed, the more diluted becomes its effectiveness,” noted Light, “but the more people are exposed to its harmful side effects. The Inverse Benefit Law applies to most drugs advertised on television or in other mass media.”

In one example, Light and Brody point out that expert guidelines have steadily lowered the blood glucose levels that determine a diagnosis for diabetes. As this threshold was lowered from 140 milligrams per deciliter to 126 and then to 110, millions of additional patients received medications originally formulated to treat people above the original, higher thresholds. The authors argue there is little evidence that people at the lower thresholds are helped by the medications, and yet all were exposed to the drugs’ potential side effects.Read more: http://www.healthcanal.com/public-health-safety/14778-Drug-Marketing-Increases-Risk-Illness-Study-Finds.html

via Drug Marketing Increases Risk of Illness, Study Finds — Commercial Alert and healthcanal

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The next frontier for ads – Your geometry quiz

Paul S. — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 19:43:03 +0000

From that bastion of hard-hitting reporting, The USA Today, we get this piece on the pitiful state of our public schools.

So when administrators at Rancho Bernardo, his suburban San Diego high school, announced the district was cutting spending on supplies by nearly a third, Farber had a problem. At 3 cents a page, his tests would cost more than $500 a year. His copying budget: $316. But he wanted to give students enough practice for the big tests they’ll face in the spring, such as the Advanced Placement exam.

Tough times call for tough actions,” he says. So he started selling ads on his test papers: $10 for a quiz, $20 for a chapter test, $30 for a semester final.

That worries Robert Weissman, managing director of Commercial Alert, a Washington-based non-profit that fights commercialization in school and elsewhere. If test-papers-as-billboards catches on, he says, schools in the grip of tough economic times could start relying on them to help the bottom line.

“The advertisers are paying for something, and it’s access to kids,” he says.

About two-thirds of Farber’s ads are inspirational messages underwritten by parents. Others are ads for local businesses, such as two from a structural engineering firm and one from a dentist who urges students, “Brace Yourself for a Great Semester!”

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Drug Marketing Increases Risk of Illness, Study Finds — Commercial Alert

The next frontier for ads – Your geometry quiz