Year: 2008 Perspectives
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Vol. 17, No. 2, 2008, ISSN 1854-8466. Perspectives Vol. 17, No. 2, 2008 TheWrite Stuff EMWA Executive Committee Journal insights President: TheWrite Stuff is the official publication of the European Medical Julia Forjanic Klapproth Writers Association. It is issued 4 times a year and aims to provide Trilogy Writing & Consulting GmbH EMWA members with relevant, informative and interesting articles and Falkensteiner Strasse 77 news addressing issues relating to the broad arena of medical writing. 60322 Frankfurt am Main, Germany We are open to contributions from anyone whose ideas can complement Tel.: (+49) 69 255 39511, Fax.: (+49) 69 255 39499 these aims, but opinions expressed in individual articles are those of the [email protected] authors and are not necessarily those held by EMWA as an association. Articles or ideas should be submitted to the Editor-in-Chief (see below) Vice President: or another member of the Editorial Board. Helen Baldwin SciNopsis 16 rue Candolle, Subscriptions 83600 Fréjus, France Subscriptions are included in EMWA membership fees. By writing to Tel: (+33) 494 83 90 20, Mobile: (+33) 662 37 91 36 [email protected] non-members can subscribe at an annual [email protected] rate of: • €35 within Europe Treasurer: • €50 outside Europe Wendy Kingdom 1 Red House Road Instructions for contributors East Brent, Highbridge • TheWrite Stuff typically publishes articles of 800–2800 words Somerset, TA9 4RX, UK although longer pieces or those with tables or graphics will be considered. Tel: (+44) 1278 769 214, Fax: (+44) 1278 769 214 [email protected] • All articles are subject to editing and revision by the Editorial Board. Any changes will be discussed with the author before publication. • Submissions should include the full address of the author, including the Secretary: telephone and fax numbers and email address. 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Cover motif EMWA website: www.emwa.org inspired by Franz Meister. Photo model artist and designer Lena Knilli www.huntkastner.com/en/exhibitions/2006/knilli.html 51 The Journal of the European Medical Writers Association TheWrite Stuff Vol. 17, No. 2, 2008 27th EMWA Conference 20-22 November 2008, London You are invited to participate in 2 days of training, discussion, and networking at the the 27th EMWA Conference to be held between 20th and 22nd November 2008 at the Holiday Inn London, Kensington Forum, 97 Cromwell Road, London, UK. The conference will again provide members with opportunities to continue their training in the EMWA professional development programme. The workshop programme will cover a wide range of medical writing subjects, including advanced workshops for experienced writers looking to keep their knowledge up-to-date or refresh their skills. Further details and regular updates will soon be available on the website at www.emwa.org. London was chosen for this autumn meeting for its ease of accessibility, dynamism and cultural diversity, and range of good hotel options. Which makes it ideal for popping into for a 1-2 day meeting. So make room in your calendar now and join us in London for a day of expanding your medical writing horizons. Julia Forjanic Klapproth EMWA President The Journal of the European Medical Writers Association 52 Vol. 17, No. 2, 2008 TheWrite Stuff From the editor’s desk: Perspectives by Elise Langdon-Neuner ‘Perspective’ is an enormous word. Perspectives stretch had been shown to entail a small but detectable risk of back as far as we can see, allow us to view a thing in one heart failure and death. Many chronic pain patients were of many possible ways and give us an understanding of distressed about the withdrawal of these drugs from the how important one thing is in relation to others. Sometimes market, and the view was often heard that the risk was there would seem to be only one perspective—the one that acceptable against the alternative of perpetual, severe pain. is most familiar to us, and which corresponds to our own Another perspective when considering drug development opinion—but there are always more viewpoints if we look is to contrast our concerns about drugs today with the situ- at things ‘in perspective’. ation in England before drugs were developed. Take the An extreme example of this is provided by the drug time of Shakespeare’s birth in 1564, for example. The pop- thalidomide, which caused the tragedy that more than any- ulation was diminishing dramatically; it had fallen by 6% thing else was responsible for the escalation of regulatory in the previous decade. This was the result of numerous writing, the career mainstay of the majority of medical premature deaths, of which the plague was only one cause writers. This year marks the 50th anniversary of the grant of among many, which included tuberculosis, leprosy, a licence to sell the drug in the UK. In 1961, three years measles, rickets, scurvy, smallpox, cholera, dysentery and after its introduction, William McBride, an Australian doc- a mass of fevers that have now slipped from our vocabu- tor, wrote a letter to The Lancet reporting a link between lary, such as the ‘English sweat’, which could hit people in babies born with deformities in his hospital and mothers the morning and kill them by the evening of the same day. who had taken thalidomide during their pregnancy to cure Today, immunity has been developed to many of these dis- morning sickness. Thalidomide was withdrawn from the eases. Effective treatments have been evolved using drugs market later that year. An estimated 10,000 babies world- to replace such mediaeval practices as bleeding with leech- wide were born with deformities caused by thalidomide. It es. Today we face the problem of an ageing population and was abundantly clear that, to avoid future catastrophes of a diminishing workforce—at least these are the concerns in the same kind, tighter controls would be needed before a Western society because we tend to forget that there are drug could be released onto the market. Legislation that still places in the world where people continue to battle was under consideration by the US Congress at the time with mediaeval diseases. Meanwhile pharmaceutical com- gained urgency, and what came to be known as the panies are seeking to develop treatments for a new genera- Kefauver-Harris Drug Amendments Act was passed unan- tion of Western disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease. And imously in 1962. This act considerably tightened provi- developing cures, once seen as a humanitarian enterprise, sions relating to marketing drugs and testing them in clini- is now controlled by commercial whims. cal trials, and it increased the amount of documentation that needed to be written and submitted to the FDA. Time, place and circumstances change perspectives. A number of articles in this issue show how current changes However, there is another side to thalidomide. There are are altering the perspectives of regulatory writers. Art reports that it is an effective treatment for various disor- Gertel and Nancy J Stark trace the laten increase in the reg- ders, including leprosy, multiple myeloma, HIV/AIDS and ulation of devices. In the process, more work has been cre- ulcers. The manufacturers have provided the medication ated for regulatory writers, perhaps adding to the free for such conditions, but even so the World Health headaches that Linda Donnini describes in her article on Organization advises that it should not be used because the adverse events—but tips are also given for curing the risks are too high. Despite attempts to impose strict precau- headaches. The obligation for the pharmaceutical industry tions against the use of the drug by pregnant women and to to provide ‘adverse reaction’ reports was, in fact, brought persuade men to use condoms because thalidomide is pres- in with the 1962 amendments mentioned above.