All Sorts of NY Times Stuff: Autism, Clinical Trials, Tsunami

The NY Times reported this week that many with autism have essentially adopted the argument of those with Downs who make the claim that theirs is a different form of human life and experience, rather than a disability, syndrome or disease. Now they cover the absence of real evidence on what cures autism, if anything, and the meaning of that absence for patients and the health professions. Getting treatment for autism is increasingly difficult, because insurers do not want to pay, and the burden on siblings is more profound that has been realized. Each of these articles will be helpful for anyone dealing either with autism or with the more general issues in the ethics of just distribution of health care.

One piece on the Celebrex, Vioxx, Aleve problems and their implications for public perception of the FDA.

Are physicians boring? Like this needed an article.

NY Times covers medical relief efforts in the aftermath of the incredible tsunami devastation. This piece itemizes the hurdles that physicians and other health relief forces will face. Among the most significant distribution issues is one that involves the general inability of international and national groups in healthcare to work together or to do their own logistics:

The aim is to avoid much of the competition and lack of coordination that have hampered the response of governments and private organizations to earlier catastrophes, Robert Holden, a member of the command center team, said in a telephone interview. In responding to the tsunami in South and Southeast Asia, he said: "The biggest problem is ensuring that those who survived continue to survive and provide the materials they need. We must avoid creating a secondary disaster because we can't get the necessary materials through."

Denise Grady writes about the lives of five people enrolled in different clinical trials. This piece should be used by anyone teaching research ethics to clinicians.