If you can't think of what to comment, return to the details from the reading that stood out for you, then do some writing about them to find your ideas. (Then do some re-writing to craft a comment.)
Wednesday, February 1, 2012
The Rise of Medicine; FDA
After you have read "The Rise of Medicine," and the “Chronology of Direct-to-Consumer Advertising,” comment here. As always, you can comment with an idea you had while reading, an explanation that helps us better understand the text, or a continuation of the conversation started by another student.
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I personally enjoyed reading Mogull’s paper on direct-to-consumer advertising. I have never been in any class even remotely related to advertising, that being said, I had never heard of this term before. From the start Mogull states directly what DTC is (pharmaceutical companies marketing directly to consumers) and why is it relevant to the audience. Using the statistic explaining how much DTC accounts for marketing sales directly within the United States urged me to keep reading. I wanted to know more about this type of advertising and what it entailed. The author’s writing style is simple yet very educated. Bringing in dates, definitions and specific Supreme Court cases could be very overwhelming for someone to read, but he is able to explain each aspect as direct as possible. This leaves the reader informed rather than overpowered.
ReplyDeleteIt was also interesting to see the shift in the FDA’s power over DTC advertising and how the governmental branch has moved into a much more authoritative and regulating role over the product claim section of DTC advertising. Mogull brings up two different arguments within his paper – one in favor of DTC advertising and one against it. However, his paper does not seem to take a stance on if he believes that DTC advertising provides disease and treatment information to consumers nor that there can be harmful consequences involved with it (106). Not knowing how he felt allowed me to take a stance of my own from the information presented to me through this paper.
The "Rise of Medicine" provided very many backgrounds on what we call "medicine" today. It was interesting to see how the author thought medicine has been around for as long as time, and that trying to define it historically was nearly impossible. However, the way the articles were divided into sections of different kinds of medicines as well as different views of medicine provided a very well organized display of information. This helped me get by such a long chunk of text.
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed how the author didn't focus too much on the specific names and dates of important figures and events within each subsection. Providing different trends that led to the current definition of medicine and how the definition was molded and remolded throughout history was also very interesting and effective for me.
Throughout the article, the author did her best (in my opinion) to lay out the information in a non-biased manner so that the reader could make his or her own definition of what medicine is and how it was created.
I agree with Ashley. I thought the fact that Mogull states that DTC advertising could be both effective and ineffective, good and bad, wads very interesting. It let the reader decide which side they wanted to personally take after being informed about the issue with good, solid facts. As a PR major, I have already taken 2 advertising classes, and I thought it was very interesting to read about the evolution of the FDA. I also found it interesting but almost disappointing that deaths or birth defects had to occur before the government would think about the safety and regulations that needed to be taken when releasing a new medicine! I find it incredibly sad that this had to happen and that no one thought of testing out some of these medications before administering them to the public.. children in particular. I suppose this is just another example of how health has evolved and become regulated within the last century! I really enjoyed reading all the cases and the different events that made the FDA reconsider and create more regulations to eke the public safe and healthy.
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed reading both articles because they were both organized in a chronological manner. The "Rise of Medicine" was separated in to regions. Vivian Nutton wrote about the highlights of medicine during the time periods of the Greeks, Egyptians, Arabs, etc. What struck me the most though was the interchange of information that many regions had about medicine and health. For example, Nutton mentions the conquest of Alexander the Great in Egypt and how the Greek culture influenced the area (52). There is always a learning process in medicine and health throughout the region and history, and it is important to recognize the advances it has made.
ReplyDeleteIn the "Chronology of Direct-To-Consumer Advertising, Scott Mogull writes about the learning process the FDA has made with the DTC advertising. After every case, Mogull writes about the outcome and how it affected the consumers, drug companies, and physicians. The table really helped to understand the article which made the reader feel well informed about his research.
I really thought these two articles shared a common theme about medicine and health though, and that it is always evolving and changing, and with that comes new rules and new research. For example, in "Chronology of Direct-To-Consumer Adversiting", the changes that the FDA had to make for consumers was because of the ever changing technology, from billboards in the 1930's to the internet in the late 2000's. In "The Rise of Medicine", it mentions the early practices of surgery in medical writings and now because of such previous information, some surgeries are well perfected because of better instruments and knowledge.
Similar to Young, I believed the format of "The Rise of Medicine" flowed really well and made the article easier to read. I liked the fact that it was separated into chunks explaining the origins of medicine in Babylonia and Egypt, followed by Greece, then interpreting religion in "The Christian View..." and ending in the development of medicine in universities. Vivian Nutton, the author, made the article flow well by writing comparisons and contrasts of the different views of medicine in each culture. For example, the Egyptians were known for the drugs while in Greece, the medicine was focused on dietetics (regulating the whole lifestyle, conducted by theoreticians). I thought Nutton made her argument stronger by giving the reader background, starting in Egypt, on how medicine was built over the years. Some beliefs were disregarded once new doctors found better evidence while other practices are still put to use today. However, Egypt and Greece didn't have much of a religious influence on medicine while the Galenic tradition practiced healing at the shrine of famous Muslim saints. It seemed as though as cultures evolved, the development of religion within cultures started to become more the norm. It's really interesting to see how far we've come by means of medical advances today with all the knew technology, and know that all the information we have in 2012 is stemmed from the findings over the years, and medicine will only grow more advanced over the next decades.
ReplyDeleteI personally found "The Rise of Medicine" pretty interesting and easy to comprehend. Not only the ariticle was related to the broad theme of health, but the topic "medicine" itself was something that I've always been curious about. In the article, the writer subdivided the history of medicine geographically, and moreover, she further illustrated the influence of the developement of medicine from one region to another. Therefore, it was interesting to follow which country was influenced by which and at the same time I was awed to see how interconnected the world was.
ReplyDeleteMedicine is now an indispensable part of our lives. Through this article, I could understand what medicine is and how it was developed and how the process of the development was somehow different depending on the regions but at the same time interconnected to each other. I felt like I grabbed a better sense of medicine and its history.
In "The Rise of Medicine", I found it to be a a very informative and intriguing read. This chapter informed the reader about the rise of medicine "beyond mere healing, as the possession of a specific body of learning, theoretical and practical"(47) in the different regions during the Greek, Arabian, and Egyptian time periods. The ways of healing was described in two different ways, through internals drug, potion, and bandages or through someone who uses incantations and healing rituals. Throughout the reading you get a sense of where medicine came about and how we use the types of medicines we do today. From people like Erasistratus who was a Greek physician-scientist who dissected the brain, eye, and studied the heart around 280 BC to figure out what effects the body in what way. He did this to get a better understanding of the layout and organs of the human body. It was people like him who's ideas led us to know the knowledge of medicine and health today. It was also interesting to see what cultures were influenced by religion in their medicines and healing, not all cultures believed that they were connected. We see this play out even today in our lives and from this text we have a better understanding of where the ideas came from.
ReplyDeleteWhat I found interesting in "The Rise of Medicine" is the point the author makes about diagnosing people that are sick. He states that "the sick were brought into the marketplace and had their cases diagnosed and treated by passers-by who had had, or who knew of other with, a similar condition," which is almost like today. I know that when I have been sick or not feeling well, if I tell a family member or a friend, they try to figure out what I have or what might be causing my symptoms. I do have several family members in the medical field, but sometimes they have a hard time figuring it out. Then when I do go to the doctor, it's something completely different that what everyone else thought. I am curious if this behavior might have passed down from generation to generation and across cultures. I know we don't stick our sick outside of our houses, but we do encourage people to visit the sick to keep them company. It is hard to wrap my head around these ideas presented in the text, but that seems to stick out the most.
ReplyDeletehow do I make a post on the front page...?
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