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MATURE MARKET HEADLINES POSTED 03/27/98
Gut Feelings On Ulcer-Risk Often Wrong
Adults over age 60 are more than twice as likely to under estimate their personal risk to ulcers, says a New Roper Starch Worldwide Survey commissioned by pharmaceutical giant Searle and the American Gastroenterological Association (AGA).
The survey found that 60% of those surveyed had a moderate to high risk for developing gastrointestinal complications. Ironically, 70% of the survey respondents believed they are at low or no risk. The type of gastrointestinal complications studied in the survey were those caused by non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs). NSAIDs include aspirin, ibuprofen, and naproxen. These common pain relievers, used by 33 million Americans, may cause serious stomach problems such as bleeding ulcers. Gastrointestinal complications caused by NSAIDs remain one of the most prevalent drug toxicities in the nation, leading to 76,000 hospitalizations and 7,600 deaths annually. According to Harvard Medical Professor, Lee Simon, MD, these statistics underscore the fact that "even though NSAIDs may be the most commonly used drugs in America, that doesn't mean they're harmless, especially to patients with predisposing risk factors." Since those over age 60 are among the highest users and least informed about NSAIDs, they are a high risk group for NASID-induced ulcers, says AGA President Phillip P. Toskes, MD. As a result, the AGA and Searle recently launched the first comprehensive NSAID education campaign called REDUCE (Risk Education to Decrease Ulcer Complications and their Effects from NSAIDs). This multi-faceted national initiative will reach consumers and medical professionals through educational and public awareness outreach including a risk screening tool, toll-free hotline, Internet website and free brochure. Nationally, the campaign will roll out to local pharmacies, physician offices, senior centers, and retirement communities. At the heart of the REDUCE campaign is a first-of-its-kind Ulcer Quotient (U.Q.) Risk Screener, a user-friendly tool that estimates an individual's personal risk of NSAID complications. This simple screening device asks consumers a series of basic questions about risk factors and calculates a U.Q. rank indicating low to higher risk levels. NASID users are encouraged to discuss their results with a medical professional. Consumers can access the U.Q. Risk Screener via a toll-free number (1-888-ARTH-LINE), jointly sponsored by the AGA and Searle, or assess their U.Q. on-line at Searle's Better Living Spa website at "www.arthritisconnection.com". Founded in 1897, the American Gastroenterological Association is one of the oldest medical specialty societies in the United States. The AGA website address is "www.gastro.org". Searle, the pharmaceutical sector of Monsanto Company, is a research-based company that develops, manufactures and markets prescription pharmaceuticals worldwide. See AgeVenture archives for related article: Surgeon Has Gut Feeling About Ulcer Origin AgeVenture News Service, www.demko.com BACK TO TOP Lawyers Want Court to Outlaw Legal HelpTexas ... home on the range. Where seldom is heard ... a discouraging word ... especially these days. Just ask Ophra Winfrey. If you're one of millions of Americans who got a mental hernia trying to figure out how Texas could ignore Winfrey's Constitutional guarantee of free speech, wait until you hear this one.The Texas legal community seems to be up-in-arms about Nolo Press. Nolo is the publisher of self-help legal books favored by many retirees who figure its possible to create basic legal documents like Wills using only a self-help manual and the good sense God gave'em. Sounds logical, but that notion doesn't sit too well with attorneys who charge big bucks to do that kind of work. Here's what's at stake. The Texas Supreme Court, through its Unauthorized Practice of Law Committee, will hold a hearing later this year to determine whether the sale of Nolo's books and software in the state of Texas violates the unauthorized practice of law (UPL). UPL is a Depression era law designed to protect the legal profession from competitors. In essence, the legal profession seems to think that Nolo's self-help legal books compete with their services. Nolo's co-founder and publisher, Ralph Warner says that Nolo sees itself as a publisher of basic legal tools designed to allow cash-strapped Americans to cope with everyday legal problems without the help of expensive lawyers. Warner fears the Texas case could be the first step toward censorship and erosion of First Amendment guarantees of free speech. "If the Texas legal establishment can successfully ban law books written for ordinary citizens, who is to say Texas doctors can't ban self-help medical publications, and Texas accountants self-help tax books and software." Given the present climate in Texas, one can only image that medical and accounting publishers wish Nolo hadn't uttered that argument. Nevertheless, if Texas does use the UPL to stop Nolo publications from being sold, the ban may be impossible to enforce because thousands of the self-help legal books have already been sold to private citizens, libraries, universities, and retail outlets. In other words, if UPL prevails, everyone of these book owners would have to be ordered to remove Nolo books from their shelves. As you can see, there are many sides to this issue. However, the biggest stake here is the heart of our Constitution, whether its guarantees are protected irrespective of ones' zip code. Texas' chronic intolerance for discouraging words, whether voiced by a talkshow maven or penned by the popular press serves neither that state nor our nation. If "everything really is bigger in Texas" ... let's hope that includes common sense. Afterall, even discouraging words are actually encouraging evidence that freedom of speech is not unheard of in Texas. AgeVenture News Service, www.demko.com BACK TO TOP Sandwich Generation in Parental PickleSome baby boomers are referred to as the Sandwich Generation because they're wedged between the competing responsibilities of caring for their young children and their aged parents while maintaining a hectic, two-career-family lifestyle.As if that wasn't enough to worry these boomers, now there's more bad news. Most boomers and their pre-teen children spend less than an hour a day talking to each other, according to a survey by Philips Consumer Communications. That may be why many boomers underestimate the maturity of their kids and have misconceptions about what's important to them. The study found that kids are much more serious than their parents think. Kids rate their future, schoolwork and family matters as the most important issues, while parents said fun, friends, and personal appearance are the top issues for kids. More than half the kids say their parents don't always give them a chance to explain themselves and almost the same number of parents say their children don't let them explain themselves. When there is intergenerational communication, only 20% of kids say they find it very easy to talk to their parents about issues that really matter. Twenty-six percent say it is "somewhat difficult" to communicate with their parents. "The middle school years are a time of great emotional and social challenge for young adolescents, and a time when many lasting impressions are made'" says Marion Payne, president-elect of the National Middle School Association. "The communication patterns that these adolescents and their parents create today may well be the same patterns they follow throughout their lives." Boomers who want to learn how to improve communication with their kids may request a free booklet, "Let's Connect", authored by Harvard psychologist, Lawrence Kutner, PhD, and published by Philips Consumer Communications. Send a SSAE to: "Philips Let's Connect", P.O. Box 7615, Melville, NY 11775-7615. Philips designs, manufactures, and markets a complete range of personal communications products, including telephones, answering machines, screen phones, and pagers. AgeVenture News Service, www.demko.com BACK TO TOP Global Impotence Pegged at 47 MillionAs baby boomers march into their middle years and beyond, the problem of impotence will increase to an estimated 47 million worldwide by year 2000, says Tom Bruckman, executive director of the Baltimore-based American Foundation for Urologic Disease.Presently, "50% of men between the ages of 40 and 70 have some degree of dysfunction". According to a new national survey, "The VIVUS Impotence Report", a majority of male respondents say they would rather suffer from just about anything besides impotence, including cataracts, high blood pressure, arthritis, or hearing loss. There are a variety of reasons for such high anxiety. Fear of the negative impact on their relationship is one reason. Nearly one-third of women believed that her partner's decreased sexual function could be caused by infidelity. Experts say that this misperception, combined with the female partner's concern that she may no longer be attractive to her partner (20%), could be the reason why women are reluctant to initiate discussion about their partner's impotence. This lack of communication, say experts, could do as much damage to the relationship as the physical problem itself. To make matters worse, nearly half of the men surveyed said they would wait a month or longer before seeking treatment. According to a study by the Sexual Function Health Council, fewer than ten percent of the 20 million men in the U.S. who suffer from impotence actually seek medical intervention. Such treatment can, and often does, produce positive results because the causes of impotence are manifold. In about 80% of the cases, the most common physical causes are hardening of the arteries, diabetes, neurological disorders, pelvic trauma, medication side effects, hormonal imbalance, smoking, alcoholism, and drug abuse. The remaining 20% of cases may have psychological roots such as anxiety, depression, stress, or marital discord. Founded in 1991, VIVUS Inc is a leader in the development of therapeutic systems for the treatment of impotence. The company has recently pioneered a novel therapy, MUSE, that delivers pharmacological agents to the erectile tissue in order to reverse impotence. According to VIVUS, MUSE has become the therapy most prescribed by urologists in the United States. A patient information hotline called "Chart a New Course to Your Health" has been established by the company for those seeking information about impotence and its various treatments. The health hotline number is: 1-800-835-9021. AgeVenture News Service, www.demko.com BACK TO TOP Think Tank Says No to Social SecurityIn the debate over national health care reform, there is good news and bad news. The good news is that Congress actually has discovered the answer to America's health care problem, and the answer is a system that already exists, says The Heritage Foundation. It's called the Federal Employee Health Benefits Program (FEHBP).This system gives consumers wide choice of health plans and user friendly advice on how to choose among rival plans. It promotes intense competition among health insurance carriers. It controls costs. It incorporates excellent benefits. And those who are enrolled in FEHBP are pleased with the system. The bad news, says Heritage, is that Congress has been keeping this system exclusively for itself and federal workers while considering ways to impose vastly inferior systems on almost all other Americans. What would be fair is for Congress to allow all Americans to have a version of what lawmakers and federal workers reserve for themselves. In order to open an FEHBP-like system to the uninsured and other working-age Americans, Congress needs to take two basic steps. First, Congress needs to change the tax treatment of medical benefits to allow tax breaks to Americans wherever they obtain health coverage. This would enable Americans to choose a plan offered by their union, or a managed care plan, or a "high option" insurance plan, wherever they work. Second, Congress needs to require working-age Americans not covered by Medicare or Medicaid to purchase at least a basic health plan, and to provide assistance to families who otherwise would be unable to afford care. The Heritage Foundation's proposed Consumer Choice Health Plan would accomplish this. Under the Heritage plan, the current tax exclusion for company-based plans would be replaced with a refundable tax credit for a health plan obtained form any licensed source and for out-of-pocket medical expenses. In addition, all heads of households would be required to obtain at least a basic plan. This would give ordinary Americans the same kind of options for health coverage that the President, members of Congress, cabinet secretaries, congressional staff, and millions of federal employees now enjoy under FEHBP. AgeVenture News Service, www.demko.com BACK TO TOP Sierra Taps Growing Genealogy MarketGenealogy has become one of America's most popular hobbies. As this market grows, so does the demand for computer software to document family histories and create family trees. Sierra, maker of a variety of computer software programs, plans to take genealogy software to a new level with the release of Generations Deluxe.Generations Deluxe has the most innovative and flexible charting capabilities available, making it possible for genealogy enthusiasts to produce richly detailed and personalized family history charts with versatile layouts, vivid colors, multiple photos, and personal documents. This genealogy tool for organizing and researching family histories and creating family trees has four key elements: Easy Chart, Easy Tree, Internet Detective (providing links to more than 27,000 genealogy web sites), and Easy Viewer (allows for easy searching of 3 CDs with historical information on more than 57 million people). Each of the four key elements is represented with an icon on a user-friendly interface for computer novices as well as skilled users. Sierra's Generations Deluxe is available on CD-ROM for Windows 3.1 and 95 at an estimated retail price of $49.95, available at retail stores. AgeVenture News Service, www.demko.com BACK TO TOP |