Articles

Posted in HCSM

Utilizing Social Media to Study Information-Seeking and Ethical Issues in Gene Therapy

Posted on by Editor

See on Scoop.it – Health Care Social Media Monitor

Utilizing Social Media to Study Information-Seeking and Ethical Issues in Gene Therapy

Marie Ennis-O’Connor‘s insight:

Background: The field of gene therapy is rapidly evolving, and while hopes of treating disorders of the central nervous system and ethical concerns have been articulated within the academic community, little is known about views and opinions of different stakeholder groups.
Objective: To address this gap, we utilized social media to investigate the kind of information public users are seeking about gene therapy and the hopes, concerns, and attitudes they express.
Methods: We conducted a content analysis of questions containing the keywords “gene therapy” from the Q&A site “Yahoo! Answers” for the 5-year period between 2006 and 2010. From the pool of questions retrieved (N=903), we identified those containing at least one theme related to ethics, environment, economics, law, or society (n=173) and then characterized the content of relevant answers (n=399) through emergent coding.
Results: The results show that users seek a wide range of information regarding gene therapy, with requests for scientific information and ethical issues at the forefront of enquiry. The question sample reveals high expectations for gene therapy that range from cures for genetic and nongenetic diseases to pre- and postnatal enhancement of physiological attributes. Ethics questions are commonly expressed as fears about the impact of gene therapy on self and society. The answer sample echoes these concerns but further suggests that the acceptability of gene therapy varies depending on the specific application.
Conclusions: Overall, the findings highlight the powerful role of social media as a rich resource for research into attitudes toward biomedicine and as a platform for knowledge exchange and public engagement for topics relating to health and disease.

(J Med Internet Res 2013;15(3):e44)
doi:10.2196/jmir.2313

 

See on www.jmir.org

Posted in HCSM, Pharma

Unreported side effects of drugs found using Internet search data

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Using data drawn from queries entered into Google, Microsoft and Yahoo search engines, scientists at Microsoft, Stanford and Columbia University have for the first time been able to detect evidence of unreported prescription drug side effects before they were found by the Food and Drug Administration’s warning system.

Using automated software tools to examine queries by six million Internet users taken from Web search logs in 2010, the researchers looked for searches relating to an antidepressant, paroxetine, and a cholesterol lowering drug, pravastatin. They were able to find evidence that the combination of the two drugs caused high blood sugar.

The study, which was reported in the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association on Wednesday, is based on data-mining techniques similar to those employed by services like Google Flu Trends, which has been used to give early warning of the prevalence of the sickness to the public.

See on www.nytimes.com