Although generic drugs, by law, have the same safety and effectiveness of much more expensive brand name drugs, many physicians apparently don't know it. A survey by the pharmacy benefit manager Medco Health Solutions, Inc. of 2,000 consumers, 300 practicing physicians and 450 retail pharmacists found that 27 percent of doctors believe generics have more harmful side effects. It is not surprising that pharmacists were much better informed, but it is surprising that the consumers had nearly three times more faith in the side-effects profile of generics than their doctors did.
H
I T S
Scripps Howard News Service a HBNS story about an American Journal of Preventive Medicine study on stalking. The story appeared in the Chicago Sun-Times, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, the Bradenton Herald, the San Angelo Times, the Knoxville News-Sentinel and the Huntington Herald-Dispatch and Bluefield News in West Virginia. It also appeared on ABC News.com.
M
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The NBC Today Show gave 10 minutes on July 20 to a story billed on its Web site as "Couple Sheds 551 Pounds with Prayer." After asking the diet book shill whether failing to lose weight means failing God, and not getting an answer, host Matt Lauer succumbed, informing his guest and the audience, "I am not a critic or a cynic, because to me, the proof is in the pudding." No proof was ever offered of the link between prayer and weight loss. Lots of journalistic pudding, however.
Finally, the public is recognizing what health educators have known for a long time - the behavioral risks you take are the most important single factor in your health -- and death.
Jessie
Gruman President
and Executive Director
Center for the
Advancement of Health
Yet as complicated as human behavior is, the solution that the general public buys - egged on by public officials and insurance companies - is to blame the victim.
While we haven't yet found one sure way help people change troublesome behavior -- other than repeated, boring and frustrating attempts that only sometimes work -- we do know what doesn't work: hectoring and blaming.
Now that Congress has loosened Medicaid rules, West Virginia plans to reduce Medicaid benefits to those who make unhealthy choices, and Kansas is considering charging state employees who adopt healthy lifestyles less for their insurance and requiring a lower co-pay for Medicaid recipients.
The unfairness is obvious: The fat bureaucrat can afford to pay higher premiums, but the single mother working at one or two jobs at marginal pay may not have the time, energy or skills it takes to get healthy.
If policy makers know anything, it is how to read public opinion. So it is not surprising that victim-blaming has gained traction, even among the victims. A recent Wall Street Journal-Harris poll found that in just three years, the percentage of people who want to make the unhealthy pay more for insurance jumped from 37 percent to 53 percent. Paradoxically, the same poll showed that a majority of Americans believe the poor and unemployed should get the same quality of health care as people who have jobs and pay taxes.
How can it be that about the same percentage of respondents believe that everyone is entitled to the same level of health care but that the poor have to pay more if they are unhealthier?
It does make a kind of perverse sense only if the penalties are imposed on the "unworthy" unhealthy, not the good-character people like you and me who only occasionally travel down the Rocky Road of excess. It may make sense from a moral perspective, but it's lousy public policy because blaming the victims will neither improve their health nor keep health care costs down.
Healthier living is not just a matter of "personal responsibility;" it requires persistent and inescapable cues from public interest campaigns, government regulations, inner strength and peer pressure to inform, encourage and reinforce the value of good health for individuals and their families. And it works. People of all moral and political beliefs have changed their behavior in many ways in recent years. They wear motorcycle helmets and seat belts, they designate themselves as drivers of the drunk and they demand that Marriott ban smoking in all its hotel rooms.
Mass behavior change can happen relatively quickly, as anyone surgically attached to a cell phone can text you. The motivation has to come, first, from within. But sometimes, a regulatory carrot or a two-by-four can get your attention, too.
FROM THE CENTER
TRENDS IN PHILANTHROPY Center President Jessie Gruman was quoted in a Wall Street Journal article about the new trend of highly personalized philanthropy and the effect it might have on government support for scientific research.
ELECTED Dr. Gruman was recently elected to membership on the Council of Foreign Relations, a nonpartisan and independent membership organization and home to a highly regarded think tank, whose fellows conduct research on international subjects ranging from national security to children's education. She also is serving as a member of the Institute of Medicine Committee on Psychosocial Services to Cancer Patients/Families in a Community Setting.
DEPARTING After nearly 14 years with the Center, almost since its founding, Rena Convissor will be leaving to become executive director of the American Jewish Society for Service. Rena has been deputy executive director, vice president and the person responsible for the Center's day-to-day operations. Needless to say, she will be missed.
HEALTH AND BEHAVIOR INFORMATION TRANSFER
The National Cancer Institute has adopted a new policy under which all meetings and conferences it organizes or principally sponsors must be held in locales that have adopted a comprehensive smoke-free policy. The announcement follows Surgeon General Richard Carmona's landmark report concluding there is no safe level of second-hand smoke.
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation is accepting proposals for a new program to stimulate innovations in personal health information technology. The $3.5 million program will support up to 10 multidisciplinary teams in a collaborative effort to design and test innovative applications that can be built upon a common technology platform. Deadline is Sept. 19.
The Food and Drug Administration has posted the latest edition of "Patient Safety News," a Web-based video news program. The program features information on drugs, biologics and medical devices, as well as FDA safety notifications and recalls.
The Alliance for Aging Research is holding its bipartisan congressional awards dinner Sept. 12 in Washington. Contact: cbrowne@agingresearch.org
