4 - The Michigan Daily - Tuesday, March 15, 2005 OPINION Aiw fiitp Th JASON Z. PESICK Editor in Chief SUHAEL MOMIN SAM SINGER Editorial Page Editors ALISON Go Managing Editor EDITED AND MANAGED BY STUDENTS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN SINCE 1890 420 MAYNARD STREET ANN ARBOR, MI 48109 tothedaily@michigandaily.com NOTABLE QUOTABLE We love large people." - Hooters Air President Mark Peter- son, promoting the airline's policy of acomadating overweight flyers with a free extra seat if necessary, as reported Sunday by the Pittsburgh Post Gazette. ALEXANDER HONKALA THE F}~nI CHUMBCKJH How Adderall slipped through the cracks SAM SINGER SAMS C Bi extroamphet- amines. The Reagan-erablock- busters that revolutionized modern behavioral therapy and bridled a generation of restless children. Pharma- ceutical companies grossed billions while Adderall (along with its psychotro- pic sisters Dexedrine and Ritalin) was embraced as the world's first child-friendly amphetamine - the one federally controlled substance that could rightfully accompany Flinstone vitamins at the breakfast table. With age came new prescrip- tions, with those, higher doses. Attention Deficit Disorder had become an epidemic of the upper class, a disease only for those who could afford a diagnostic test. The drug's popularity soared alongside its users' grade point averages, and the market for medicating hyperactivity exploded. By the time Adderall encountered its first dorm room, its biochemical signature had already been left on our generation. The drug's subsequent collision with contem- porary college life is too weighty a topic for such limited space. The list of talking points is exhaus- tive: How bad is the abuse problem? (A Johns Hop- kins study estimates the medication can be found in the blood streams of one-fifth of college stu- dents nationwide - a figure that doesn't begin to account for recreational use). Has it been over-pre- scribed? (Pharmacies in the United States fill close to a million prescriptions per month). What about academic integrity? While some call it a miracle drug, others believe it's some sort of scholarly ste- roid. Each of these matters has heard its share of lip-service - I'll keep my distance. I'm just look- ing for the answer to one question: can Adderall kill you? Last month, citing rising incidence of unex- plained sudden deaths, Health Canada (Canada's equivalent of the U.S. Food and Drug Admin- istration) pulled Adderall XR from domestic pharmaceutical markets. Canadian authorities had linked twenty mortalities between 1999 and 2003 to the consumption of the central nervous stimulant, 14 of which occurred in children. After a preliminary review, the FDA has publicly contested Health Canada's findings. Adderall- induced heart failure, our federal scientists have maintained, is not common enough to warrant suspension of the drug. Granted at face-value, 20 deaths in four years is considerable, but many of the medical debate's finer points remain murky. Exactly how many of the subjects in question had prior structural or cardiac abnormalities is unclear. There were, unquestionably, a number of previously-healthy users (namely children) whose deaths were directly related to short-term exposure. Health Canada also blames the drug for 12 strokes over the same four year period, two of which proved fatal. Officials have pinpointed irregular heart rate fluctuations - one of Adder- all's more notorious side effects - as the source of the blood clots. The disputes are dicey, and my yet-to-be-com- pleted political science degree gives me little authority to referee. It's in times like this that I like to defer to the time-honored, tax payer-funded acu- men of the U.S. Federal Government. Any other week I'd be hard-pressed to take Canada's word over the FDA's - the world's acknowledged gold standard on drug safety matters. Truth be told, had it been written half a year ago, this column would have likely been a 400-word pot-shot at our regula- tion-happy neighbor to the north. Not today. Six consecutive months of oversight lapses have left the FDA neck-deep in controversy. It began last September when the agency released warnings of heightened suicide risks for children prescribed to top-shelf antidepressants like Paxil and Zoloft - results, the media would learn, the FDA had kept buried for almost a year. After an early-winter panic over a batch of contaminated flu vaccines, February brought news that FDA- approved Vioxx, Merck Inc.'s blue-ribbon painkill- er, may have contributed to the premature deaths of more than 30,000 Americans with prior heart complications. Congressional oversight has since intensified, and lawmakers have zeroed in on the agency's clinical review of Adderall and other dex- troamphetamines. What would another drug safety scare mean for the FDA? With hundreds of politically-charged legislators breathing down its neck and a rapidly deteriorating public relations crisis, the embattled agency is in no place to pull Adderall from con- sumer markets - especially if it would mean bow- ing out to the Canadian government. If you want more than circumstantial evidence, get this: Iowa Sen. Charles Grassley (R) claims agency whistle- blowers have told him that in a shameless effort to save face, senior FDA officials asked Health Cana- da not to suspend sales of Adderall. Coming from one of the more esteemed members of the U.S. Senate, that's some pretty powerful hearsay. Adderall may well be the next life-threaten- ing drug to have slipped through the bureaucratic cracks. Still a pharmaceutical tadpole, Adderall's youth precludes any reliable assessment of its long-term health impacts. Once graduated from its test phase, Adderall was simply left to proliferate - its lasting health hazards left to the FDA's post- approval review process. Regrettably, understaffed and scantly funded, the agencies on-the-market surveillance strategies are frighteningly passive. Instead of continuing to test drugs while in circula- tion, regulators are more likely rely on manufactur- er-supplied clinical reviews and monthly progress reports. Whether you can stomach it or not, it's our Uni- versity's students - the overworked freshman and the strung out J.D. candidates, the exhausted history majors and the nocturnal M.B.A.'s - that make up the control group for the most critical phase of theFDA's Adderall test trials. The drug was first floated on the market as a mild stimu- lant, let's hope it doesn't leave a killer. Singer can be reached at singers@umich.edu LETTER TO THE EDITOR. Unkmity sholdd stand by lectw;'us in their demands To THEDAmx: I am writing in response to (LEO stages picket, 02/23/2005) which was in response to the University's noncompliance with their labor contract. As a graduate stu- dent of the School of Social Work and Social Democrat, I would like to express my extreme disappointment with the Uni- versity's failure to comply, as well as my own school's lack of support for its faculty who are members of LEO. As the School of Social Work claims a number-one sta- tus in terms of reputation and mission and infuses its curriculum with components of privilege, oppression, diversity and social justice, I am shocked that it would not stand by in support of its faculty mem- bers in assuring adherence to contract provisions. It is my opinion that a school with such local, state, and national pres- ence could be at the forefront in assist- ing and protecting its own adjunct faculty that serve their students in a multitude of ways as advisors, mentors, field and class instructors. It seems as though the fac- ulty is capable of going above and beyond to enliven and enrich the educational and field experiences of the student body while the administration does little to support or protect them. Furthermore, the school has done little in creating the necessary transparency and communication with its student body in terms of acquiring infor- mation about the school's involvement or lack thereof. If the students are investing in an opportunity to work with and learn from some the country's finest advocates, community leaders, and human service workers, we must also stand united with faculty to demand that the school admin- istration and that of the entire university be supportive and proactive in adhering to the provisionsof the LEO contract. Stu- dents of the School of Social Work and the university at large should recognize those faculty members who are being disempowered and fragmented (through reclassification). It is very hypocritical of a university, a town and a nation to stand apathetic to the mission and goals of unionization and only in theory support the concepts of autonomy in employment, and social and economic justice. We must not tolerate those who choose tactics of intimidation and manipulation through back-door firings and layoffs of the very people who have made this university all it is and all it can be. Sarah Richards School of Social Work I I VIEWPOINT Maintaining hope BY SOL ADELSKY You could call me a typical University student: I like sports, I'm from the East Coast and as an incoming freshman, I thought I'd end up in the Business School. So why then, might you ask, did I choose to spend my junior winter semester abroad in Jerusalem, Israel, rather than along the luscious beaches of Australia, the cobblestone alleys of Italy or anywhere else for that matter? The choice to go to Israel was an easy one for me: From my previous visits to Israel, I had the opportunity to learn that Israel is a much better, kinder place than some anti- Israel activists on campus like to point out. I knew Israel was about more than military operations and force, and after being here for over two months, my experience has confirmed the fact that Israel is indeed an incredible place. On the one hand, studying abroad here seems nn d ifferent than other sidv abroad nrograms. conflict. With Yasser Arafat's death and Mamoud Abbas's recent election as Palestinian Authority Chairman, a sliver of hope for peace has resur- faced. On the other side, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is pushing forward with his plan for disengagement from Gaza, proving Israel's will- ingness to adapt to new circumstances and make difficult sacrifices. With that said, it discourages me when I read the Daily online only to learn my fellow students are actively working against my safety by re-ignit- ing the divestment debate on campus. The divest- ment movement unfairly singles out Israel, making deceitful and misleading accusations, in an effort to demonize Israel to the campus community. The Michigan Student Assembly resolution sup- porting divestment accuses Israel of using collec- tive punishment, and claims that the Israeli armed forces have used practices that touch every aspect of Palestinian lives. Unfortunately, this resolution fails bomber was thwarted on his way to blow up a packed bus in French Hill, a neighborhood that my bus line runs right through. To say this is wor- risome is an understatement, and to neglect the mention of terrorism against Israel, civilians on the part of divestment proponents is simply mis- leading and wrong. In the face of continued terrorism, I, for one, am still hopeful. I firmly believe that the immediate future could be a watershed in Israeli-Palestinian relations. However, to think my fellow students and student government are pushing a resolution that discourages hope and instills fear and contempt on campus and around the world, rather than working on a joint resolution expressing hope and solidarity with the Palestinian people and Israeli people, says something sad about the state of affairs on campus, and sends a gloomy message to the people of the Middle East. I urge the campus community to prog- ress from finger pointing and the counterproductive I ~ Hi IV 1