Letters
Trusting my intuition,
living my dreams
Hooray for Mary Parks of the College Office and her "Believe in miracles,
trust
your intuition and live your dreams"! The more I trust my intuition and
strive
to live my dreams, the more the miracles seem to increase. They happen so
regularly that to call them coincidences has become intellectually
irresponsible. Goethe writes it best: "The moment one definitely commits
oneself, then Providence moves too...All sorts of things occur to help
one that
never otherwise would have occurred. Boldness has genius, power and magic
in
it...Begin it now!"
Lee Merrick, Surplus Property
Public needs to be fully
informed about studies
I read with interest Dr. Rubin's article on "FDA's advertising
regulations are
costing lives" (Nov. 6). While FDA restrictions on advertisements by
pharmaceutical companies may appear overly prescriptive, blanket
statements to
the public about the efficacy of a treatment for a particular disease
could
prove to do more harm than good. For example, Dr. Rubin cites studies
which
indicate that a regular dose of aspirin can reduce the risk of heart
attacks.
Dr. Rubin makes no qualifying remarks and leaves the reader with the
impression
that a regular aspirin dose could lower the risk of coronaries in all
persons,
regardless of sex or race. In actuality, the clinical studies which
indicated
that aspirin could reduce a person's risk for a heart attack were
conducted
only on male patients, and I believe only on white males. As Dr.
Bernadine
Healy, dean of the medical school at Ohio State University, and
ex-director of
the National Institutes of Health, stated recently at a public forum on
women's
health issues, there have been no similar studies conducted on the
efficacy of
aspirin in reducing heart attacks in women. Dr. Healy, an eminent
cardiologist,
further stated that while she is comfortable in prescribing a regular
dose of
aspirin for her male patients, she is reluctant to do so for her female
clients
because of the lack of clinical evidence. It is entirely conceivable that
prescription of a daily dose of aspirin could lead to serious side
effects in
women, e.g., bleeding disorders. While I am not familiar with the studies
that
Dr. Rubin cites for the possible effect of aspirin on reducing colon
cancer, I
imagine that this evidence also has been obtained from studies only on
males.
Regardless of who informs the consumer about the benefits of a drug, be
it the
FDA, a pharmaceutical company or a doctor, it is critical to fully inform
the
public about the make-up of the patients for which the treatment was
found to
be effective.
Thank you for the opportunity to comment on this article.
Ann R. Stevens, Sponsored Programs