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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Jan. 13, 1971)
OREGON DAILY voi. lxxii. no. n Emerald ■■I I I\j*I Ca 1^1 University of Oregon, Eugene, Wednesday, January 13,1071 Enjoy the snow, for it shan’t be here long. The weather bureau predicts heavy snow for today, turning to snow showers tonight. A warming trend tomorrow and Friday should turn the falling snow into the usual Oregon rain. The high today is expected to be 36 degrees, tomorrow, 40 degrees. Showers are predicted for Saturday and Sunday. Offers multiple landuse plan Sierra hosts forester By ALLAN WALTON Of the Emerald Members of the Eugene chapter of the Sierra Club were addressed Wednesday by a member of what has more often than not been considered the opposition. Speaking at the monthly meeting was Zane Grey Smith Jr:, the new supervisor of the Willamette National Forest. A member of the Sierra Club, Smith most recently was supervisor of the Sierra National Forest in California. In his career as a forest management official, he has worked with nine different forests in five different states. Smith cited three stages in the evolution of what is today’s National Forest Policy: the pre-World War era during which the natural resources of the country were recognized and dedicated to public use; the era durine World Wars I and II, during which the emphasis was placed on using and developing the country’s natural resources (hydro electric power, wood products, etc.); and the present era in which the emphasis has shifted to include the preservation of resources, both tangible and intangible and the utilization of these resources. “We now seem to have a shortage in the public land pie,” said Smith, turning from past history to present affairs. He added that “people have an uneasy feeling about enough land being left for everyone,” noting that various interest groups, such as logging firms, conservationists, and rec reation groups all tend to feel encroached upon by each other. He said that “people are now going to the courts” to ensure the availability of land to pursue their interests. However, Smith felt that turning to the courts to resolve these issues would result in a “parcelling out” of public lands, and that the National Forest Service could provide a better solution. He said that the National Forest Service’s “multiple land use program,” whereby the Service tries to coordinate and provide for a number of different uses of public lands, was a valid and useful concept which could “effectively serve long-range public interests.” Smith went on to say that the “multiple use concept is not now justifiable in the eyes of the public,” as each interest group generally feels that such a policy is only a means by which other groups’ interests will be favored. He concluded by saying that one of the keys to a more intelligent and publicly acceptable policy in the use of natural resources is public involvement, specifically during the early development stages of any given area. “Neither the public nor the Forest Service is skilled at making die multiple land use policy work,” he said. “We need public involvement in making decisions as to the values and objectives for our resources.” Reader’s Digest policy rapped New medicines not always better WASHINGTON—The Reader’s Digest, conservative in its approach to manners, mores, labor unions, government and politics, is frequently radical in its approach to medicines: If they’re new, they’re better. Along with some admirable medical reporting, the files of the Digest itself sometimes argue a contrary proposition: If they’re new, they might be no better and, maybe, not as good. Commonly, proponents of radical ideas get carried away. This can be of more consequence in the case of the Digest than in that of most publications, for a variety of reasons. For one thing, the Digest reprints gee-whiz pieces on new drugs from other publications, thus vastly broadening their readership. For another, the Digest generates exuberant articles of its own. But the primary reason for focusing here on the Digest—a reason entwined with the others—is that its immense circulation gives it the potential to influence an audience of unmatched size in whatever direction the Digest cares to influence them. TTiree years ago, the Digest got carried away by the Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association (PMA) and an advertising agency, which together had worked up a plan to offset the adverse publicity from some senate hearings with a series of quarterly eight-page ad vertisements for trade-named prescription medicines. The gimmick—a familiar one in many publications—was to present the ad in the regular editorial format of Digest articles. Somehow, the Digest failed the first time around to tell its readers that the eight articles were advertisements. It may not have made too much difference, because some of the Digest’s non-advertising articles on drugs over the years could just as well have been ads. Not everyone has a long memory for specific cases, so it might be useful to look at a few examples. Articles that promote the use of prescription drugs, and that incite laymen to demand drugs of their physicians, can bear heavily, and sometimes adversely, on health and life. “L-Dopa has set me free,” said a headline in the Digest last August. The subheadline, referring to Floyd Miller, the author, said, “he was a guinea pig for a powerful new drug, a drug that can now bring blessed relief to two out of three victims of Parkinson’s disease.” For the most part, the piece is a testimonial, com plete with a free plug, by name, for two suppliers, and an observation that one of them offers L-Dopa “without charge to indigent patients of physicians in private practice.” Toward the end, the article does acknowledge that little is known about the toxicity of L-Dopa in long-term use, that it doesn’t work for one patient out of three, that side effects are frequent, and that these effects sometimes are severe. This disclaimer, dropped as it is into a sea of tranquil praise, is not likely—nor was it intended—to reverse the thrust of the proclamation from one victim of Parkinson’s disease to his fellow sufferers: a new drug “set me free.” In the normal course of events, the good news about potent new drugs comes first, usually with a lot of hoopla. The bad news usually comes later, usually piecemeal, and usually unwanted by physicians and patients who have put their hopes and money into them. There is at least a possibility that this may be the case with L-Dopa, if a letter from three researchers in the Aug. 31 Journal of the American Medical Association is an indicater. After studying L-Dopa for 15 months in 60 severely disabled patients, the scientists, who initially had been fairly hopeful, said they had found the benefits to be “of limited duration,” and to have been followed “in all cases by adverse effects, the latter often progressive, sometimes serious and occasionally dangerous ... we therefore have reservations about the release of the drug at this time.” Careful, controlled scientific studies, not testimonials, are the proper basis for therapeutic claims. One hopes that Floyd Miller continues to get “blessed relief,” but if he doesn’t will the Digest tell us about it? Regrettably, the Digest’s use of experts as authors often has produced results in questionable or more so than, the proclamations of victims. The most impressive recent case of the Digest commissing an expert to say new-is-better was a piece entitled “Perspective on the Pill.” The article appeared in the issue of last October—at just about the moment the Food and Drug Ad ministration (FDA) was disclosing that two brands were being taken out of production because they had caused an abnormally high number of growths in the breasts of beagles. The writer of the article, which was mainly an at tack on hearings on the pill held by Sen. Gaylord Nelson (D-Wis.), is a physician who is herself a member of the FDA’s advisory committee on contraception. She is Elizabeth Connell, an associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Columbia University who also directs family planning research and development at its in ternational institute for the study of human reproduction. In a telephone interview, Dr. Connell acknowledged that she had received research grants from all of the manufacturers of birth control pills. She was unable to recall the amounts but said the net for herself was “very little.” Similarly, Dr. Edward Tyler, associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of California and medical director of the family planning centers of greater Los Angeles, who co-authored a piece much like Dr. Connell’s in the June 30 Look Magazine, has been getting grants from all of the manufacturers since 1958. Neither Dr. Connell nor the Digest, in its biographical note about her, mentioned her connection with the companies. Neither conceded any need to do so. A Digest spokesman said the editors knew the industry had financed her work, but noted that this is true of most contraceptive researchers. He added that the editors were unaware either of the identity of her sponsors or of the content of her studies. The “editorial judgment” waS t«2t disclosure would not have been “especially pertinent,” the spokesman added. The editors of Look said that the failure of the magazine to meuuon Tjlei's industry grants did not violate “any code of ethics.” They said that the grants were for research “on virtually all methods of contraception” and said that his “qualifications or objectivity” as a “recognized expert” were in no way affected. Sen. Nelson, who held his hearings in January and February to find out if women were being adequately informed of the pill’s known and suspected hazards, said