Lexicillin QD

Gangs of hippies reenact protein synthesis in 1971 film

Talk about a unique approach to medical multimedia. (via BoingBoing.net)

FDA/FTC: Be Smart, Be Skeptical

Glucobate, what diabetics have been waiting for.

So says the faux Web site set up by the FDA and FTC to demonstrate an example of deceptive advertising for a spurious diabetes cure.

Speaking about the FDA, Medscape reports:

The agency has also announced a new campaign (Be Smart, Be Skeptical) to teach consumers how to avoid phony diabetes cures, according to an alert sent recently from MedWatch, the FDA's safety information and adverse event reporting program. The program will be available in English, Spanish, and French, and its introduction in association with the American Dietetic Association is planned for Diabetes Awareness month in November.

This is in addition to the following FDA Web site pages which serve to expose the problem of false claims related to diabetes drugs: http://www.fda.gov/diabetes, http://www.fda.gov/diabetes/pills.html, http://www.fda.gov/opacom/lowlit/diabetes.html, and http://www.fda.gov/opacom/lowlit/sdiabetes.html.

IncretineForum: extrapancreatic effects of incretins

With the recent FDA approval of Merck's sitagliptin (Januvia), and the expected approval next month of Novartis' (vildagliptin), both oral therapies for type 2 diabetes, interest is building in the pharmacodynamics of these incretin enhancers.

INCRETIN eForum has produce a CME piece, Extrapancreatic Effects Of Incretins: An Overview. Dr. Basu writes:

Glucose tolerance is heavily dependant not only on the quantity and pattern of postprandial pancreatic insulin and glucagon secretion but also on the sensitivities of the various tissues (liver, muscle, fat depots) to these hormones for utilization of glucose. While hepatic and peripheral insulin sensitivity has been shown to be significantly impaired in type 2 diabetes, other studies have shown normal hepatic responses to glucagon in these individuals. Furthermore, glucose effectiveness — defined as the ability of glucose per se (in the absence of dynamic changes in insulin concentrations) to influence its own uptake by liver and muscle and suppress its own release by the liver and to a lesser extent the kidney — plays a significant role in postprandial glucose homeostasis, especially in people with impaired insulin sensitivity, i.e., type 2 diabetes. Indeed, the minimal model, as well as other model-independent techniques, have shown impaired glucose effectiveness in type 2 diabetes.

This piece attempts to address the "whole-body glucose physiology" that more simplified explanations miss. Also, the issues of glucotoxicity and lipotoxicity should be included.

Beauty and the drug rep

This is a funny piece from YouTube about a beauty contestant who was a former drug rep. It includes an interview with Dr. Avorn who wrote the book Powerful Medicines which examined the practice of detailing new drugs to physicians. He created an organization of "academic" detailers consisting of pharmacists and nurses who travel to physicians' offices and tout the benefits of using generics.

FDA approves first incretin enhancer for the treatment of type 2 diabetes

Today the FDA gave its approval to Merck's sitagliptin (Januvia), the first in a new class of drugs, gliptins, which act by serving as dipeptidyl peptidase (DPP)-4 inhibitors to help maintain glucose control for patients with type 2 diabetes.

Normally, the enzyme DPP-4 rapidly degrades endogenous incretins which are hormones released from the GI tract in response to food ingestion. The incretins both augment the level of insulin and suppress release of glucagon in a glucose-dependent fashion. Typically, patients with type 2 diabetes have a blunted incretin response, and the inhibition of DPP-4 helps preserve the beneficial activity of the incretins.

Merck is announcing Januvia with its own Web site, as wellas sponsoring an educational site,  IncretinInfo.com which goes into further detail about incretins and their effect on glucose homeostasis.

Novartis is expected to receive FDA approval for its incretin enhancer vildagliptin (Galvus), and Bristol-Myers Squibb is still in phase III testing with saxagliptin.

An overview of the results of the phase III clinical trials for the incretin enhaners

SCIENCE IN SOCIETY- Climate Change and Cloning for the Average Joe?

This is part of the series of conferences entitled "Atlantic Transfer - Great Ideas Are Mobile" hosted by ConRuhr. This one is scheduled for tomorrow at the German House at the United Nations Plaza. From their Web site:

New Challenges in Reporting on Science
Science is no longer just for the scientists: A well-informed public is needed, since it is the public's interest that fuels the policy and funding influencing scientific discovery. A dialog between science and popular culture is necessary - but how does one best balance scientific and journalistic practice?

The Atlantic-Transfer Conference on Science Journalism 2006 brings together science and media experts from both sides of the Atlantic to discuss these topics.

Whose Story is it?
Researchers, Reporters and the General Public
The first part of the conference will focus on the tension between researchers and reporters, and the general public's perception of science in society. Especially important is the question of how to maintain scientific integrity and still catch the interest of the public.

The Selling of Science
Politics, Science, and Public Policy:
The second part of the conference will illuminate the interaction between politics and science. Questions such as how scientific discoveries influence politics and how political decisions affect scientific development will be focused on.

The workshop will bring together representatives of the main German media, heads of academic departments and leading American authorities in Science Journalism.

Full-text Nature journals at SIBL

Recent e-mail notice from the Science, Industry, and Business Library located here in NYC on 34th Street and Lexington Ave.:

Nature journals now full-text at the library!

Nature is the most prestigious, interdisciplinary journal in science.
It truly covers the entire gamut of science. Visitors to SIBL can now
browse, search, print and save the full text of articles not just from
Nature itself, but also Nature's special interest journals that began
to appear in the 1980s. Although we do not subscribe to Nature
Medicine,  you can search and get citations to its articles from the
same interface. We have:

Nature: International weekly journal of science. SIBL on-site users
have unlimited access to:

    * Nature (1950 to present)
    * Nature Biotechnology (from volume 1, 1983 to present)
    * Nature Chemical Biology (from volume 1, 2005)
    * Nature Genetics (from volume 1, 1992)
    * Nature Methods (from volume 1, 2004)
    * Nature Materials (from volume 1, 2002)
    * Nature Nanotechnology (launches in October 2006)
    * Nature Physics (from volume 1, 2005)

You can access Nature and its sibling journals through the main menu in
SIBL's Electronic Information Center, where you can view, print and
save articles to CD or USB flash drive. Or connect your own computer at
our laptop docking area to browse and save the Nature journals along
with the contents of our nearly 300 other premium full-text databases
and highspeed web access. NYPL's electronic subscription to Nature and
its journals is not available from your home computer over the
Internet.

Science, Industry, and Business Library (SIBL)
New York Public Library
188 Madison Avenue (corner of 34th Street)
New York, New York 10016-4314
(212) 592-7000
www.nypl.org/research/sibl/science/

"Embargoed Science"

This is a book I'm reviewing now. The basic premise is that the process of providing a preview of science stories to science journalists before the official publishing date, creates several problems about the representation of the importance of these stories to the public.

From the publisher's blurb:

In addition to divulging the realities behind this collusive practice, Kiernan offers an unprecedented exploration of the embargo's impact on public knowledge of science and medical issues. He surveys twenty five daily U.S. newspapers and relates his in-depth interviews with reporters to examine the inner workings of the embargo and how it structures our understanding of news about science. Kiernan ultimately argues that this system fosters "pack journalism" and creates an unhealthy shield against journalistic competition. The result is the uncritical reporting of science and medical news according to the dictates of a few key sources.

I first heard about this book in last week's On the Media podcast, where the author Vincent Kiernan made his case.