Kuklo scandal spotlights DoD/Medtronic ties
Filed under: Conflicts of interest, Europe, Health journalism
In the wake of news of a falsified study published in a British bone and joint medicine journal by former Walter Reed Medical Center surgeon Timothy Kuklo, reported by The New York Times‘ Duff Wilson and Barry Meier, the Center for Public Integrity’s M.B. Pell, Aaron Mehta and Nick Schwellenbach have help paint a broader picture of Medtronic-funded travel at the Department of Defense. First, some background from Wilson and Meier:
The former Army surgeon, Dr. Timothy R. Kuklo, reported that a bone-growth product sold by Medtronic Inc. had much higher success in healing the shattered legs of wounded soldiers at Walter Reed than other doctors there had experienced, according to Colonel Coots and a summary of an Army investigation of the matter.
The two reporters mentioned that Kuklo indulged in privately funded travel, and the Center for Public Integrity helped put some numbers to the relationship, finding that “Between 2001 and 2006, Medtronic paid for at least 15 trips taken by Dr. Kuklo, worth more than $13,000.”
Kuklo isn’t the only one at DoD who benefited from being cozy with the folks at Medtronic, which “paid more than $90,000 for about 80 Defense Department trips from 1998 through 2007, according to the Office of Government Ethics data.”
Big names in health care reform convene for panel
The BIO International Convention, described on its Web site as the largest global event for the biotechnology industry, will bring together Sen. Tom Daschle; Sen. William H. Frist, M.D.; Gov. Howard Dean and Karl Rove, former adviser to President George W. Bush for a keynote discussion about health care reform.
Promotional material about the panel, sponsored by Amgen, says it will “preview the congressional debate as republican and democratic policy leaders and political operatives discuss their differing perspectives on the challenges and opportunities associated with the comprehensive reform of the U.S. health-care system.”
The panel, scheduled to start at noon ET 12:40 ET, will be webcast. (Web site and press release apparently have the time wrong.)
AHCJ member Susan Dentzer, editor-in-chief of Health Affairs and an on-air analyst on health with The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, will moderate the session.
VA: Consent forms for human studies incomplete
According to a report released by the Department of Veterans Affairs Office of Inspector General, an audit of representative VA hospitals found that about 31 percent of informed consent documentation for human studies was incomplete. In the vast majority (97 percent) of cases, this was due to lack of a witness signature.
Among the report’s other findings:
- An estimated 1 percent (1,023) of the 110,231 non-compliant lacked the subject’s signature or that of their authorized representative, rendering them legally ineffective.
- An estimated 1.7 percent of the 367,103 consent forms could not be located, the report extrapolated the national range to be somewhere between 0.6 percent and 4.5 percent.
- In specific situations, Institutional Review Boards can waive informed consent. In two of the 33 such cases examined, sufficient documentation of this waiver was not found.
Pharma industry still finding its way in social media
Big pharma continues to dabble, tentatively, with social media. The latest example is GlaxoSmithKline, which this week launched its very own corporate blog, called More Than Medicine. The effort, which is edited by a corporate communications person identified only as Michael M, will purportedly devote more space to health issues but largely avoid discussion of Glaxo products, citing “unique regulatory parameters governing our communications” as a drug maker.
The inaugural blog post, which follows several weeks of internal testing that produced a few posts now on full view, contains some mixed feelings. On one hand, Michael M writes that “it is still unclear how, and in some cases, if pharma can appropriately utilize blogs, wikis, and applications like YouTube and Facebook to provide information about our products.”
“Yet,” he adds, “there is no question that patients, physicians, media, investors, payers, policymakers and others are increasingly turning online to social media resources for information about healthcare issues and products. So we feel obliged to these stakeholders, as well as our shareholders, to productively and appropriately engage in this new space.”
In other words, some trepidation remains, although perhaps not quite as much fear as existed several months ago (look here). Johnson & Johnson launched a corporate blog two years ago, although a blog run by its Centocor unit was recently lost to a corporate reorganization, and Glaxo runs a blog devoted to the Alli diet pill - sort of. There haven’t been any posts since September. However, Novartis, Boehringer-Ingelheim and AstraZeneca all use Twitter to deliver news about their activities; and Sanofi-Aventis and AstraZeneca launched branded YouTube channels.
Nonetheless, in a recent story, Marissa Miley and Rich Thomaselli of Ad Age wrote that big pharma is lumbering toward the digital age. Glaxo, for its part, may disagree. But if the drug maker truly wants to create dialogue around issues at the core of its corporate mission, Michael M should be identified properly. Glaxo is more likely to connect with the public if the public feels a real person is at the helm, not an semi-anonymous mouthpiece.
FDA relied on industry during BPA approval
Susanne Rust and Meg Kissinger of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel used the federal Freedom of Information Act to obtain and review dozens of government e-mails and more than 100 attached files to find that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration actively leaned on BPA industry lobbyists “to do much of their work for them” during the approval process for bisphenol A.
The reporters say that “BPA, used to make hard, clear plastic common in many food product containers, is found in the urine of 93% of Americans. It has been linked to neurological defects, diabetes, breast and prostate cancer and heart disease.”
The FDA worked to discredit a Japanese study that linked BPA to miscarriages by going to a lobbyist - before the government’s scientists even had a chance to review the study. And both studies the FDA relied upon to approve BPA were funded by chemical makers.
At the same time, the reporters found, independent BPA experts had not been given the same level of access to the FDA and in fact had found it difficult to even get their opinions heard during the process.
The e-mails Rust and Kissinger obtained appear to paint a pretty detailed picture of the cozy relationship between BPA lobbyists and FDA officials, citing numerous examples of privileged access granted to industry representatives and instances in which the government officials appeared to defer to their opinions and judgments.
Former CNN producer on H1N1 coverage: Retaining audience through fear-mongering
Peter Dykstra, a former executive producer of CNN’s science, tech and weather unit, offers his take on media coverage of the H1N1 virus in a column for Mother Nature News.
Dykstra writes, “The now-waning uproar over the swine flu is a textbook example of a serious story, magnified beyond reason in order to retain an audience by frightening it.” He goes on to say that local television news directors were thankful the flu threat landed just in time for sweeps month.
He points to past events in which he says the media has overreacted, including the case of Andrew Speaker, the man who had tuberculosis and was banned from flying into the United States.
The media’s overreaction and “phony hype” makes it easier for skeptics to ignore peer-reviewed science, according to the column. Dykstra, who has written about the threat of shark attacks for CNN, suspects we have “a better chance of being bitten on the butt by the consequences of bad journalism than by a shark.”
Have reporters written off single-payer system?
Filed under: Health policy, Hospitals, Member news, Uncategorized
American Journal of Nursing’s Jacob Molyneux writes about the nurses who were arrested while protesting a lack of representation for those who support a single-payer health care system at a Senate Finance Committee meeting about health care reform.
In his blog post, Molyneux points out that some people and organizations say the press isn’t giving adequate coverage to the single-payer option.
Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) published a media advisory in March that said out of “hundreds” of news stories, only 18 mentioned the single-payer option. FAIR’s advisory fails to tell us exactly how many “hundreds” of stories it searched and the full study doesn’t appear to be on the organization’s Web site.
The “Report on Health Care Community Discussions” on HealthReform.gov says that 27 percent of the groups participating “discussed the merits of a single-payer system, and the majority of those groups supported this idea.” The report does note that “Supporters of a single-payer system submitted numerous reports, in part due to the encouragement by advocacy groups to participate in Health Care Community Discussions.”
At a town-hall meeting last week, President Obama said “if he were building the health care system from scratch, a single-payer system would be the best approach.”
So, health journalists: Have you been reporting on the single-payer option? Why or why not? Feel free to point out coverage you find worthwhile.
Six rules to tweet by
Twitter’s days as a hangout for a geeky few are over. Astronauts, senators and, gasp, journalists are regularly telling the world what they’re doing in 140 or fewer characters.
More people now visit Twitter than the Web sites of The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times. The popularity of Twitter, and other social media, led the Journal (my former employer) to issue some dos and don’ts for its news staff last week that spawned a backlash from the Twitterati over what some say is a recipe for boringness.
Seems to me that Twitter, like the telephone or e-mail, is just another tool for communication. It’s not inherently bad, but it can be used badly. There’s a risk for journalists in tweeting, yet the rewards are ample. Since I joined Twitter last September, I’ve gotten more ideas for stories and blog posts than I can count. I’ve found sources, made new friends and landed leads for jobs. I’ve also had fun.
Here are a few highly subjective tips for a better Twitter experience.
Be Smart: Twitter is a public and searchable place. I think it’s possible, and even beneficial, to tweet about topics you’re reporting on without giving away specific stories, but be conservative if you’re worried about that. If you post a query for help on something, keep it neutral and focused.
Be Interesting: Offer tidbits to the world that you would want to read. File dispatches about meetings or events that capture the mood and highlights. Pass on links to cool material and use a tool like bit.ly to shorten URLs. Don’t bore your followers, or they’ll drop you.
Be Neighborly: Nobody likes a nonstop self-promoter. It’s fine to use Twitter to draw attention to your work, but you’ll soon be tuned out if that’s all you do. Ask questions, and answer those of others when you can. Pass along, or retweet, noteworthy updates from other people.
Be Yourself: Don’t leave out the social element when you’re networking online. You’re a human being — let people know it. Funny slices from your life, insights about your hobbies or offbeat areas of interest can leaven the flow of work items. Don’t go overboard but don’t be a drone.
Count to 10: Don’t post anything you’re not comfortable having the whole world see — forever. Be especially careful when you think you’re sending a message to specific people on Twitter. You might think you’re sending a private direct message and find out later you didn’t.
Be Patient: Twitter skeptics and many beginners ask, “Where’s the beef?” My answer: “Give Twitter a little time and you’ll see.” The most important ingredient for Twitter success is following smart, interesting people. The right network can serve as your personal early warning system and support group all in one. I don’t think I saw the value of Twitter until I was following about 100 people and news feeds. Lately, I’m up to almost 300, which may be my limit. Picking folks is mostly trial and error. Find your friends on Twitter (there’s an e-mail tool to help), see who they follow, and branch out from there. Preview people’s updates before following them and don’t feel bad about dropping folks whose stuff doesn’t keep your attention. There are also some Twitter directories, such as We Follow, that some people find helpful.
For more, check out AHCJ’s handy primer on Twitter for health journalists. You can follow me @scotthensley and you can follow AHCJ @AHCJ_Pia.
(Twitter logo via Wikimedia Commons)
Kleyman launches Generations Beat Online
When we posted back in January that, after 20 years at the American Society on Aging, journalist Paul Kleyman was joining New America Media, he hoped to reconstitute his Age Beat Online newsletter.
Paul Kleyman (Photo: Frank Klein)
Well, he has instead launched “Generations Beat Online, the e-news of the Journalists Network on Generations.”
GBO includes information about news briefings, tips on sources and more. It will carry pieces about emerging views and resources on long-term care and caregiving by AHCJ member Eileen Beal.
Kleyman is associate director of the Ethnic Elders Newsbeat at NAM, so you can find news about ethnic elders and an elder news roundup on the site.
To subscribe, e-mail Kleyman at pkleyman@newamericamedia.org.
Ohio insurer delivers fancy veggies to customers
Diane Suchetka of the Cleveland Plain Dealer reports on the partnership between Medical Mutual of Ohio and Ohio’s Chef’s Garden farm, supplier of some of the nation’s top restaurants, to deliver boxes of exotic, freshly handpicked, pesticide-free veggies to the health insurers’ customers for $25 a box.
At the moment, Medical Mutual’s policyholders are the only individual consumers in the nation with direct access to Chef’s Garden produce.
The farm, which also has a partnership with a Detroit-area hospital, is looking to expand beyond its current clientèle of top-shelf restaurants, including the French Laundry in Napa Valley, Calif.; Charlie Trotter’s in Chicago, and sees the deliveries as a way to bring vegetables directly to consumers without sacrificing freshness or quality.
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Awards for Excellence in Health Care JournalismDeadline: Feb. 3
- How I did it: Falsified charts in nursing homes linked to patient care
- Access Denied: Looking at a lack of health care availability
- Transparency & medical errors: Public reporting of patient harm is a potent force
- Focus on freelancing: Tips for buying liability insurance
- Why do some patients get stuck in hospitals for weeks, months?
- Investigate health professionals and the boards that regulate them
- Presidents of AHCJ, SPJ call for more openness from Obama administration
