Cause for concern?

Disclaimer - I take vitamins and supplements. I also market vitamins and supplements. And I do suggest that children, teens and adults need supplements....

But did you ever stop to wonder why the big pharmas and your docs tell you vitamins are a waste of money?


Medical School Department Heads Financially Connected to Drug Companies
Breaking News
By VRP Staff

A new survey indicates that almost two thirds of department heads at U.S. medical schools have financial ties to drug companies.

The survey, conducted by researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, was distributed to all 125 accredited medical schools and the nation’s largest teaching hospitals. A total of 459 of 688 eligible department chairs completed the survey.

The results indicated that many of the academic leaders at these institutions served as paid consultants to the pharmaceutical industry or accepted free meals and drinks from drug company representatives. Overall, 60 percent of the department heads had a personal financial relationship with the drug companies. Twenty-seven percent reported serving as a paid consultant to the pharmaceutical industry and an equivalent amount of respondents also reported serving on a drug company scientific advisory board. Furthermore, 21 percent of these academic leaders reported serving on speakers’ bureaus for the drug industry. Eleven percent of respondents were on the board of directors of companies involved in the medical industry. In short, the survey found that pharmaceutical companies are involved in every aspect of medical care.

The lead author of the study, Eric Campbell, pointed out that drug companies and makers of medical devices often take advantage of these academic connections to convince physicians to widely prescribe the companies’ products to patients, even if the products aren’t necessarily in the patients’ best interest. Campbell also co-authored a study last year, which found that these same links to drug companies occur on hospital review boards that oversee experiments on patients.

Reference:

Campbell EG, Weissman JS, Ehringhaus S, Rao SR, Moy B, Feibelmann S, Goold SD. Institutional academic industry relationships. JAMA. 2007 Oct 17;298(15):1779-86.

Help - there's a teen in the house!

My own mother once said she could no longer visit me because it was just too noisy in my house!

My son was 13 or so at the time and I couldn't hear what she heard...I had gotten so used to it - but she was in her 80's and lived in a very quiet area of Florida where no one under 50 could live - they could just visit. [ We never did figure out what length of visit was "acceptable" but a week was all I could do and that was fine.]

My house had a teenager, two dogs and two cats. When my son got home from school, he usually played with, fed and walked the dogs as I worked. Apparently this entailed too much noise for my mother - with happy barking dogs, cats deciding to be in another area of the house and my son having fun with his pets. After the dog walking, he turned on "his" music which was hip-hop or rap.

I related my mother's comment to a few friends and we all laughed - none of us was aware of how noisy our homes must seem to others! We never noticed it.

Parents of teens need to become very selectively deaf or you will go nuts. Of course you could ask for the noise level to be tuned down but didn't you do the same thing when you were a teen? Part of it is the rebellion aspect...Is it intended to tune out parents? drive parents crazy? or do teens not even think about others - including the parents?

I think it's a bit of all of the above.

I lived with it - figured it was part of the package of having a child who grows up. We worked out deals around who's music got played when and how loud - especially in the car. He is now in his late 20's and can still be quite noisy when playing video games - but now his significant other is dealing with it : - ).

Kids grow up so fast - you have to enjoy them at all ages - and yes that includes the teen years!