Drug companies are waiting for the FDA online marketing guidelines (time)

Charlie Kimball, a diabetic Indy car driver shows his helmet racing and driving. His helmet is designed so that it can sip a juice through a tube and the wheel is equipped with a device to monitor sugar in the blood during a Keeler raceScott / St. Petersburg Times / ZUMApress

On Twitter, followers of nearly $ 1,300 professional car racing driver Charlie Kimball monitor his every gesture: the countdown to main; races television interviews Dinner in Sonoma, California. It is difficult to not be inspired by an essential detail of Kimball story: the age of 25 years is a few professional runners the planet to be diagnosed with diabetes. This is partly why, Novo Nordisk, the Danish pharmaceutical giant continued Kimball complex campaign in which he regularly on tweets take two insulin enterprise products. "Simply used my Levemir FlexPen" he tweeted last June, referring to the injector disposable insulin of Novo Nordisk. Levemir appears on the front of Kimball racing uniform, his car and on its official page of Twitter, racewithinsulin. "This is an excellent way to connect with the diabetes community," he explains.

Racewithinsulin campaign turned Kimball into a rock star to the diabetes community. He has also made him one of the most provocative examples of pharmaceutical companies how smart are navigating the social-media space emerged largely non-regulated. The u.s. Food and Drug Administration has strict guidelines on how drugs may be marketed in newspapers and magazines and in 1997, had published rules for broadcast media - primarily, that companies must disclose information based on the known risks of the drug. But there are no rules for social media. (See the top 10 breakthroughs medical 2010).

This month, however, the FDA should issue guidelines on how pharmaceutical companies market drugs, viagra Ambien on outlets such as Twitter, Facebook and Google. For these companies, this is no small matter. Internet & American Life project's Research Centre Pew believes that 61% of adults obtain of online health information. Analysts say accounts for an increasing share of the approximately 4 billion pharmaceutical companies online marketing spend each year advertising their products. In the first half of this year, global companies spent $ 5.7 billion so-called search ads on outlets such as Yahoo!, according to the interactive advertising Bureau a coalition of companies that sell more advertising online at United States "there is much at stake," says Jeffrey k. times, Advocate General Assistant for the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers Association of America, a group of trade in Washington, D.C., leader.

Surprisingly, it is the pharmaceutical industry has been at the forefront of displacement of the FDA to establish rules social-media. Companies to realize their traditional sites and advertising strategies are no longer sufficient tools to promote products in a competitive marketplace in which doctors, pharmacists and consumers aggressively exchanges information on medicine on blogs. Companies are also aware that "if they cannot fully participate in the social media conversation they are marginalized,", says John Mack, editor of the Pharma Marketing Blog, which attracts approximately 25,000 readers of the industry a month. Impetus is to protect the credibility of enterprises to the rogue sell suspicious online outlets. Part of the push is to address the practical difficulties, like how to explain sufficiently the risks of the drug within the boundaries of a tweet 140 characters. Or two lines of a sponsored by Google ad text? (See the time and covers medical health).

Last year, the FDA has sent letters to 14 companies - including Johnson & Johnson and GlaxoSmithKline - warned against the use of social media to market products in some cases calling efforts "misleading." A December 2009 letter is rendered Bayer concerning Mirena, a drug, he Central on the Mom Web site promotion until February of the same year. The campaign included a conversation by script from a nurse practitioner, Barb Dehn, personal website bills itself as "an award-winning author and a recognized national health expert." Ms. said Dehn consumers, is "a birth-control method of spontaneous intimacy." The FDA has said the script "or" overstated "the proven effectiveness of Mirena", and did not mention the possibility that women who take the drug while pregnant may lose a baby or become infertile. Bayer has is no longer a Mirena social media campaign. In another case, in November 2009, the federal authorities sent a letter similar to a company of Tennessee Utah Web site claimed to sell products prevent the H1N1 virus, with meta tags like "kill the virus of swine influenza" and the "swine flu" - all words often regard by consumers. The FDA had not approved the product as a remedy against the H1N1 virus.

In the absence of formal rules, some pharmaceutical companies have been jovial social-media space entry. That is why the case of Charlie Kimball is instructive. He started the race at the age of 16. Space of a week in the fall of 2007, while racing in Great Britain, Kimball says, he loses 25 lb (11.4 kg). Doctors he quickly diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. "What is diabetes?" he remembers asking. Kimball, who is based in Indianapolis, has returned to Anne Peters, a physician in California, who has been visiting Novo Nordisk. Kimball says she suggests that he tell the company in its history. In April 2009, it had signed a contract with Novo Nordisk to promote his insulin. The company initially scrapped his plans to discuss medical treatment on Twitter. "I find it is an excellent way to remove the curtain on the life of a racing - driver to remind people I am a person with diabetes who use insulin two [products] to manage my disease,"he said."" Amber Morley, Director of the Office of Novo Nordisk in Princeton, N.J., developed an agreement with business regulatory team. If Kimball mentioned products of Novo Nordisk on Twitter, it should be followed by the generic name for the drug, as well as a link to more information about the risks and benefits of the drug. "We are trying to do so properly, so I can play according to the rules," says Kimball. (Comment on this story).

But yet again, there are clear rules. Novo Nordisk is exploring ways to extend the campaign of Kimball. The company has also developed other media social awareness targeting hemophiliacs. Unresolved, is if the pharmaceutical companies are responsible for claims of third parties on a drug risks or benefits on the points of sale like Wikipedia. Until the FDA publishes guidelines, it will be like driving on a highway without specifying that the maximum speed limit signs.

See Healthland health news.

See photos of the week time.

BP pledges cooperation after US suitable files (AFP) (Yahoo!)

LONDON (AFP) - BP is committed to cooperate with the United States after the Government filed a lawsuit against the damage caused by spills of oil this year in the Gulf of the Mexico energy giant Wednesday.

"BP will meet Government." ' s allegations in a time and will continue to collaborate with Government and inquiries, investigations "said the company in a statement.

BP, one of the nine companies named in the complaint filed by the Department of justice with a Federal Court in New Orleans, pointed out that he had already made considerable efforts to clean up the devastating spill.

"Only between the parties, BP has strengthened to pay for cleaning oil, putting aside 20 billion to pay all legitimate claims,"he said in the statement.""

"We took these measures before any legal decision responsibility and will continue to fulfill our commitments in the Gulf, as the legal process unfolds.

He further observed that the filing of the combination was only "a statement of the allegations made by the Government.

Deposit "does not in any way any finding of responsibility or any judicial decision that the allegations have merit," said the company.

BP, third largest oil company in the world has been selling off assets around the world to raise $ 30 billion to cover costs of pollution and compensation of the spill. He considered his exposure to nearly $ 40 billion.

Attorney General Eric Holder said that the complaint alleged that "security and operational regulatory violations" caused the explosion of 20 April on the horizon of depth, rig that has sent nearly five million barrels of oil buildup in the Gulf.

Membership to many groups led to a rapid recovery of physical challenges (eurekalert.org)

 

Los Angeles, CA (15 December 2010) being part of numerous social groups can improve mental health and help a person cope with stressful events. It also leads to better physical health, get better withstand?and recover faster from?physical challenges, according to a study of current social psychology and personality (published by SAGE) science.

Groups, such as networks of friends, family, clubs and sports teams, improves mental health, because groups of provide support, help you to feel well on yourself and you keep active. But belonging to many different groups may also help make you stronger psychologically and physically. Suffering from multiple memberships face better when faced with stressful situations such as recovery from stroke and are more likely to stay cool free when they are exposed to the cold virus.

Researchers Janelle Jones and Jolanda Jetten, University of Queensland were interested in how membership could give people resilience in a novel and challenges aversion. In a study they asked a dozen soldiers in formation of ice-camp to wear the heart rate monitors while experiencing their first bobsled, luge, or skeleton runs?an exciting, but very stressful opportunity. A trip in a glossy course set all heart racing, but soldiers who said that they belong to many groups returned to their normal heartbeat faster than soldiers who do not have. Suffering from numerous accessions recovered by stress faster.

To find out if the makes people aware of their membership would improve their resilience, Jones and Jetten randomly 56 students to reflect on one, three or five groups were members of, take care to describe why the group is important for them. All participants began a physical task?keeping very demanding hands in a bucket of water close to freezing. Memberships more, that participants had thought to, they have managed to keep their hand in the icy water. People who have been informed about thinking five groups were able to keep their hand in twice as long as people who have been informed to think that a single group. Because people randomly the number of groups to think, cope with pain was due to the reflection on the group memberships, and it is not simply due to mental toughness.

"Memberships are an important resource", said the researchers. "The identity that we gain from our membership helps us to develop a sense of purpose and meaning." This gives us the psychological strength to withstand and recover physical challenges. "Encouraging people to think about their groups?and to join the new ones?is a promising way to promote the health and well-being with very few negative side effects.

Section "recovering strains and enduring pain: several group positions promoting Resilience in the face of physical challenges" in social psychology and science of personality is available free of charge for a period limited to: http://spp.sagepub.com/content/early/2010/10/24/1948550610386806.full.pdf+html.

Social psychological and personality science is a journal of advanced research in social psychology and personality concise reports. SPPS is sponsored by a consortium of organizations leading the world in social psychology and personality, representing more than 7,000 researchers on six continents in the world. http://spp.sagepub.com

SAGE is a leading international publisher of journals, books and electronic media for education, education, and professional markets. Since 1965, SAGE has helped to inform and to educate the global community of researchers, practitioners, researchers and students spanning a wide range of subjects, including business, humanities, social sciences and Humanities, technology and medicine. An independent company, SAGE has main offices in Los Angeles, London, New Delhi, Singapore and Washington DC. www.sagepublications.com

Contact: Janelle M. Jones, University of Queensland E-mail: j.m.jones@psy.uq.edu.au phone: (61) 733654543

Members of the media are eligible to free access and 560 + other SAGE Journals. For more information, contact Jim Gilden (jim.gilden@sagepub.com).

[ | E-mail | [ Share]

Amgen Drug slows the spread of cancer but not extend life (International Herald Tribune)

Mr. Matthew r. Smith, senior trial and a consultant to Amgen, said researcher that the results are significant because no prior drug had been proven to prevent the spread of cancer to the bone, causes pain and disability among men who have prostate cancer.

"This study is the first to demonstrate the prevention of bone metastases, the most devastating complication of cancer of the prostate," Dr. Smith, associate professor at the Faculty of medicine at Harvard and the Massachusetts General Hospital, said in an e-mail. "It deals with a critical unmet need".

Results surprised Wall Street, which has generally been betting that the trial would not show a positive result. The Amgen shares rose more than 7% after hours.

"Who says miracles do Happen in biotechnology" was the title on a ticket issued Monday by Yaron Werber, an analyst at Citigroup.

But Mark Schoenebaum, the ISI Group analyst said in a note that the results were "at the lower end of what might be considered clinically significant." He also said that the absence of a provision of survival is probably "generate a debate".

The trial involved 1,432 so-called men resistant to castration prostate cancer who randomly assigned to receive injections every four weeks of denosumab or placebo. Cancer had not spread to the bone at the beginning of the trial, but was seen as a potential high because P.S.A. men, markers of the severity of the disease, increased.

The goal was to see if denosumab may delay the time until the cancer spread to the bones or the patient died from any other cause. Drug delayed median time to do a month 4.2, a statistically significant difference. Using a different statistic, the risk of bone metastases or death was reduced by 15 per cent.

Major side effects were low in calcium in the blood and the jaw bones associated with many drugs bone destruction.

The results were announced by press release, so that they have not been reviewed by independent experts. Amgen provides more details, saying that it would submit to a medical meeting.

The advantage is entirely from delay bone metastases, not death. Mr. Roger M. Perlmutter, Executive Vice President of research and development at Amgen, said the trial expected to show a benefit of survival since most patients lived during the trial. Also, men who have experienced the bone metastases have been removed from study so that they could be treated with a drug that helps to prevent fractures.

Denosumab blocks a protein involved in the destruction of the bone. That is without doubt the bone less welcoming surroundings for cancer to take root cells.

The drug sold under the name of Xgeva, was approved in November to help prevent fractures and other skeletal problems after prostate and other cancers were already spread to the bone. The drug is also sold to treat osteoporosis as Prolia.

Amgen, the largest company of biotechnology in the world has suffered from the decline in sales of its drug Aranesp anaemia due to security issues. Growth in sales of some of his other drugs slowing down that denosumab is regarded as a key to its future. Use in the prevention of bone metastases may add several hundreds of millions of dollars annually in the annual turnover of denosumab.

Characteristics of cosmic radiation could propose that our universe is not only (sciencemag.org)

Unique? Hidden in the fuzzy relic of microwave from big bang could be the imprint of another universe came into collision with ours.

Credit: NASA/WMAP scientific team

"href="http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/assets_c/2010/12/sn-multiverse-thumb-800xauto-4989.jpg"> single? Hidden in the fuzzy relic of microwave from big bang could be the imprint of another universe came into collision with our own.Credit: NASA/WMAP scientific team

If you thought that the cosmos was much to take, think again. Theorists have long suggested that our universe is one of the many that exist in a complex "Multiverse." Now researchers have discovered advice that this may actually be the case.

Yet, researchers who claim to be the first to find the presence of a multiverse, observation data can prove that our universe is one of the many. However, their analysis, published last Friday on the arXiv preprint server involves accurate plues could confirm the existence of a multiverse. "It's incredibly exciting to think that there is even a chance that proof of compliance to a multiverse could be found in our lives," said Alan Guth, a cosmologist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, which was not involved in the study.

The possibility of a multiverse comes from the theory of inflation, the idea that our universe through rapid expansion, shortly after the big bang. Initiated by Guth, inflation theory do a good job explaining why space is quite smooth. But scientists can explain what began to expand and that it has ceased. These problems led to theorists to consider the possibility that inflation could occur at other locations and time, generating new parallel to our own universe.

Cosmologist Hiranya Peiris, University College London and his colleagues decided to test a multiverse by examining the radiation background (CMB) cosmic microwave, a remnant of the big bang which provides a map for what the universe looked like some 380,000 years in his life. If a nearby universe had somewhat interacted with our universe prior to this date, it might have left its imprint on CMB for us to discover almost 15 billion years later. According to group the's footprint have some recognizable features such as distinct edges and symmetrical forms.

To find features, researchers have developed a computer algorithm that analysed it a small portion of the CMB data recorded by the NASA Wilkinson Microwave Probe anisotropy. Algorithm as the data that was consistent with the type of functionality generated by a collision between a universe. Although not a discovery as it is an indicator suggesting that could find a more definitive result with the observations of high-resolution, such as the Planck satellite launched last year. "We are a not expect to find anything, and we found rather these tips intriguing even in the current data, explains Peiris.".

Alexander Vilenkin, a cosmologist at Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts, which contributed to the development of the theory of inflation, think this is a result "encourage." "If indeed find us some functionality in the CMB are well equipped with a collision but are difficult to explain otherwise it would be a very important development," he said.

Yet, the news is not all the good. CMB, primarily random, is notoriously open to what is called a posteriori - observations, you can see that it that you want to see. In one famous case, scientists claimed to distinguish the initials of the British physicist Stephen Hawking. Although the group the's calibrated his algorithm to avoid such errors, there is always opportunity features may have a more mundane origin. "Unless nature reveals a unique feature in the CMB, it will be difficult to differentiate too many details about the dynamic processes which occur in the nascent universe," explains Arjun Berera, a cosmologist at the University of Edinburgh to the United Kingdom.

Yahoo! prepares to dispose off the coast of 600 to 700 workers (CBS News)

(AP)  Trimmings holiday of Yahoo Inc. include 600-700 layoffs in shake-up last Internet company triggered by poor growth.

Employees may be notified of job cuts as soon as Tuesday, according to a person familiar with the plans of yahoo. The person asked for anonymity because Yahoo had not made an official announcement.

The planned reductions represent approximately 5% of the Yahoo 14,100 employees labour market. It will mark fourth mass layoff of Yahoo over the last three years.

The two last housecleanings have current CEO company, Carol Bartz, a veteran Silicon Valley has committed more than two years, despite his lack of experience on the Web or in advertising - main source of income at Yahoo.

Round this week reductions is supposed to be concentrated in American product group of Yahoo, which already has undergone a redesign since Bartz hired former Microsoft Corp. Executive Blake Irving to perform the division last spring.

Job cuts come as a shock. New of the impending layoff was the first month last two popular technology blogs, TechCrunch, and All Things Digital.

Low financial growth at Yahoo, stagnant stock prices and recent no-shows management have raised questions on the issue of whether Bartz itself could be the door before the expiry of his contract in January 2013.

Revenues of the company had edged up in less than 2% to $ 4.8 billion in the first nine months of the year, reflecting the difficulty that yahoo was selling ads while the other Internet companies such as Google Inc. and Facebook are booming.

Google revenues rose by 23% to nearly $ 21 billion in the first nine months of the year. Private company Facebook disclose its results but it is growing so fast that it had to spend more general headquarters of the earlier this year.

Yahoo stock prices fell 31 cents to close Monday for $16.70, below a few cents, where completed last year. Meanwhile, technology Nasdaq composite index rose by 16 per cent this year.

Malaise has spurred speculation that opportunistic companies redemption could implement a takeover bid for Yahoo, possibly in partnership with another beleaguered icon Internet, AOL Inc.

Bartz, 62, has repeatedly urged yahoo, which is based in Sunnyvale, is moving in the right direction, although it warned that it might be a year or two before there is a significant improvement in financial results for the company.

? MMX, the Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Southeastern United States, with the exception of Florida likey (science daily) severe water scarcity problems

PharmaLive.com (13 December 2010) - rarety water in the West of the United States has long been a matter of concern. Now, a team of researchers who study the sustainability of freshwater in the United States found Southeast, with the exception of Florida does not have sufficient capacity water to meet its own needs.

Twenty-five years, environmentalist Marc Reisner published Cadillac desert: the American West and its disappearance, water that predicts that water in the West would be impossible to support the growing demand of cities, agriculture and industry. An article co-written by a researcher at the University of Georgia and recently published in a special issue of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences offer new support for most Reisner, findings from data and methods available for him in 1986.

Although the document focuses on sustainability of freshwater in the Southwest, co-authors Tushar Sinha, postdoctoral researcher at North Carolina State University; John Kominoski, a postdoctoral associate at the UGA Odum School of Ecology. and William Graf, Professor of geography at the University of South Carolina, said that results have important implications for the Southeast as well. "It is the Southeast has a capacity of storage of water, relatively low", said the Graf.

So that water be considered as sustainable, researchers calculated that not more than 40% of the freshwater resources may be assigned to CHMP, to ensure use of variability, navigation, entertainment and fluvial ecosystem are hosted. They were also determined how much water region must meet its municipal, agricultural and industrial needs – its footprint on virtual water. The VWF includes necessary if an area to grow enough food to sustain its own people.

Researchers have discovered that the South-West or South-East have enough water capacity to meet their own needs; These two regions import practically water from other regions of the country, in the form of food. "Southeast has virtually no VWFs positive, Interior, said Kominoski, who received his doctorate from Odum school." The greatest centres of population in the States of South-East, with the exception of Florida are internal. Piedmont cities such as Atlanta, Charlotte and Birmingham are based on small watersheds, which may be why our VWFs are negative. »

Study lead author John Sabo, associate professor at Arizona State University, said that Southeast industrial and municipal water demand is higher than supported by locally generated output.

Reisner also predicts the loss of the capacity of the reservoir. Researchers have discovered that Eastern and Western tanks lost sedimentation, storage capacity while not at the rate provided by Reisner. "The good news is that minimum lifespan of most of the dams in the South-East is more than two centuries, which is much longer than expected Reisner," said Graf.

Researchers find reservoirs lose huge quantities of water evaporation per year, which resulted in a decrease in yield reliable water. 'The United States is a higher density of tanks, but similar water losses as the West, Graf said, adding that, although there are reservoirs more to the East, they are smaller than their Western counterparts. Researchers have discovered that small reservoirs are more susceptible to evaporative losses are greatest.

Sinha added that most of these small reservoirs in the Southeast is designed to capture rain within one year, as opposed to the larger tanks West which carry water excess or deficit over several years. In addition, changes in precipitation in the Southeast quickly influence reservoir water levels. "Recent in Southeast during the summers of 2002, 2005 and 2007 drought indicate clearly the severe due to very low precipitation water shortages and water supply is dependent on the rainfall, which is likely to be more uncertain in the near future, said Sinha.".

Loss of capacity of storage and lack of enough water to meet the needs are not the issue of sustainability of freshwater in the Southeast. "The fragmentation of the River networks threaten aquatic biodiversity in South-East, which is the highest in North America in terms of native and non-native species level" said Kominoski. "Our current system does not support the needs of people, not to mention the ecosystem".

The authors also warned that the paper estimates are conservative. "The data that we have used are from 1950 to 1999," said Sinha. "The last decade, including some of the highest recorded temperature and more extreme drought, as well as figures of people, was not included." In addition, estimates do not take into account climate change. We expect to have rain in the summer, during the growing season and more severe droughts. »

Kominoski agreed and added that the 2000 census provides a continuing population growth in the sunbelt. As population grows, so demands for water, "he said." ".

Conclusion that document which Southwest is close to the limit in terms of capacity water is true for the Southeast as well. "We need a new strategy for the storage of water and conservation to United States, including the Southeast," said Kominoski. "Because we have inner metropolitan areas in small catchments, we must use less water." Less water comes to us, and our ability to store water is challenged by our climate and geographical location.

Graf said that water demand is already an issue of major disagreement among the States of South-East. "We hope that these conclusions and recommendations will inform the debate and help lead to solutions", he said.

Warning: the views expressed in this paper do not necessarily reflect those PharmaLive.com or its staff.

Source of the story:

The story above is reproduced (with drafting adaptations by staff at PharmaLive.com) materials provided by of the Georgia. The original article was written by Beth Gavrilles.

Reference of the review:

John l. Sabo, Tushar Sinha, Laura c. bowling, Gerrit h. w. Schoups, Wesley w. Wallender, Michael e. Campana, Keith a. ponds, Pam l. Fuller, William l. Graf, Jan w. Hopmans, John s. Kominoski, Carissa Taylor, Stanley w. Trimble, Robert Webb and Ellen e. Wohl. Climate and water in southwestern North America special feature: regaining sustainability of freshwater in the Cadillac desert. PNAS, 13 December 2010 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1009734108

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited for this.