Medicine and pharmacy — facts and myths about the development of an innovative pharmaceutical industry in Poland

Innovation is fundamental to the pharmaceutical industry and a key to improvements in healthcare. Its effectiveness depends on huge, constant investments in research. This innovative industry directly affects the course of studies in healthcare and medicine. Its efforts translate directly into the length and quality of our lives. For several years now, the progress underway in pharmaceutical industry has produced measurable benefits. Doctors have new pharmaceuticals at their disposal, including many types of antibiotics and anti-viral drugs, vaccines and a wide range of drugs which save lives or make them more comfortable. In the near future, ever more efficient cures for neoplastic, rheumatic, neurological, psychic, metabolic, circulatory or respiratory diseases can be expected. Innovation is necessary. The human population is ageing, and the task of an innovative pharmaceutical industry is to keep it in a good condition. The use of innovative drugs can translate directly into lowering the costs of illness. A continuous reduction in spending on healthcare has been observed. The costs of inventing an innovative drug are enormous though (US$ 800 million), and studies on a new drug last between 10 and 13 years. An essential element in recovering the incurred costs and ensuring funds needed for new research is protection by patent. Innovative pharmaceutical companies in Poland are committed to increasing the competitiveness and sustaining the development of not only the market, but also the entire pharmaceutical sector. It is a group of companies of crucial importance to the Polish healthcare system, as it influences improvement in the quality of medical services. Through their investments and spending on research and development, innovative companies accelerate economic growth. In Poland, the innovative pharmaceutical industry is represented by the Association of Pharmaceutical Companies Representatives in Poland (SPFFwP). An earlier version of this paper was presented at an international conference, “The Ethics of Intellectual Property Rights and Patents,” held in Warsaw, Poland on 23–24 April, 2004.     

高述情障碍者的情绪图式特征

采用混合实验设计,以情绪词和情绪图片为实验材料,选取不同述情障碍得分的大学生为被试,通过三个实验考察了高述情障碍者的情绪图式特征。研究结果发现：（1）高述情障碍组被试对情绪词的效价判断反应时显著长于低述情障碍组,述情障碍各维度得分均与情绪词的效价判断反应时呈显著正相关;（2）高述情障碍组被试对情绪图片的效价判断反应时与低述情障碍组相比差异不显著;（3）高述情障碍组被试情绪图式联结所需反应时显著长于低述情障碍组,情感描述困难与情绪图式联结所需反应时之间相关显著。研究结论如下：高述情障碍者存在情绪语言图式和参考性链接上的缺陷,而在情绪意象上并不存在积极/消极区分能力方面的缺陷     

医生与药业的关系：利益冲突重要根源

药业与医生的关系在最近40年日益受到医学界与社会的重视。药业以并不昂贵的馈赠及其他手段,资助学术交流、医学教育和医学研究,深刻地影响着临床医生的行为和诊治决策,从而危及医学的科学性和医学职业精神,加重了病人的负担,且祸及病人健康。药业与医生的这种关系,是道德与金钱关系的赤裸表现,是资本对医学的无情侵略。从道德、法律、行业管理等诸多方面正确规范行业与医生的相互关系,避免当前面临的种种弊端,维护医学的科学性,保护病人与社会公众的利益,刻不容缓。     

内隐追随理论:概念、测量、前因及后果

内隐追随理论,是个体心目中既存的关于追随者的特质和行为的认知结构或图式,是当前组织行为研究领域中的一个新兴的概念。内隐追随理论与X-Y理论、内隐绩效理论等既有区别又有联系。内隐追随理论研究的理论基础主要可归纳为认知分类模型、信息加工模型及联结主义网络模型等。现有研究还对内隐追随理论的测量、前因变量和后果变量等进行了初步的探讨。未来研究中,可能会注重开发更有效的测验工具,深入探索影响内隐追随理论形成的因素,采用多种方法进一步澄清变量间的因果联系,以及加强内隐追随理论的本土化研究等。     

Faith,Race‐Ethnicity,and Public Policy Preferences: Religious Schemas and Abortion Attitudes Among U.S. Latinos

Research has demonstrated that white conservative Protestants are more opposed to abortion than their Catholic counterparts. At the same time, conservative Protestantism has made significant inroads among U.S. Latinos. This study augments existing research on religion and racial‐ethnic variations in abortion attitudes by comparing levels of support for legalized abortion among Catholic and conservative Protestant Latinos. Data are drawn from a nationally representative sample of U.S. Latinos. Significantly greater opposition to abortion is found among religiously devout conservative Protestant Latinos when compared with their Catholic counterparts. Latino Catholicism, which functions as a near‐monopolistic, highly institutionalized faith tradition among Hispanics, produces weaker antiabortion attitudes than those exhibited in Latino conservative Protestantism. Among Latinos, conservative Protestantism operates as a niche voluntaristic faith. These factors produce a religious schema that yields robust antiabortion attitudes. This study has important implications for understanding the intersection of race‐ethnicity, religion, and public policy preferences.     

The Ethics of Pharma–Physician Relations in Pakistan: “When in Rome”

This article investigates the pervasive influence of the pharmaceutical industry in Pakistan and primarily the attitudes of the medical community toward such interactions. We used an inductive approach informed by grounded theory principles to analyze interviews and focus groups with consultants, residents, medical students, and a pharmaceutical industry representative in Karachi and Lahore (n = 27), and participant-observation data from two biomedical conferences. Data were then analyzed through a deontological and teleological ethical theoretical framework. Findings highlight the reasons leading to the continuation of norms including weak regulations, physicians’ expectations of receiving favors, and limited exposure to bioethics education. Recommendations for practice, policy, and research are discussed.     

Father Involvement and Young,Rural African American Men’s Engagement in Substance Misuse and Multiple Sexual Partnerships

This study was designed to examine the associations of biological father and social father involvement during childhood with African American young men’s development and engagement in risk behaviors. With a sample of 505 young men living in the rural South of the United States, a dual mediation model was tested in which retrospective reports of involvement from biological fathers and social fathers were linked to young men’s substance misuse and multiple sexual partnerships through men’s relational schemas and future expectations. Results from structural equation modeling indicated that levels of involvement from biological fathers and social fathers predicted young men’s relational schemas; only biological fathers’ involvement predicted future expectations. In turn, future expectations predicted levels of substance misuse, and negative relational schemas predicted multiple sexual partnerships. Biological fathers’ involvement evinced significant indirect associations with young men’s substance misuse and multiple sexual partnerships through both schemas and expectations; social fathers’ involvement exhibited an indirect association with multiple sexual partnerships through relational schemas. Findings highlight the unique influences of biological fathers and social fathers on multiple domains of African American young men’s psychosocial development that subsequently render young men more or less likely to engage in risk behaviors.     

Spatial representations activated during real‐time comprehension of verbs

Previous research has shown that na_ve participants display a high level of agreement when asked to choose or drawschematic representations, or image schemas, of concrete and abstract verbs [Proceedings of the 23rd Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, 2001, Erlbaum, Mawhah, NJ, p. 873]. For example, participants tended to ascribe a horizontal image schema to push, and a vertical image schema to respect. This consistency in offline data is preliminary evidence that language invokes spatial forms of representation. It also provided norms that were used in the present research to investigate the activation of spatial image schemas during online language comprehension. We predicted that if comprehending a verb activates a spatial representation that is extended along a particular horizontal or vertical axis, it will affect other forms of spatial processing along that axis. Participants listened to short sentences while engaged in a visual discrimination task (Experiment 1) and a picture memory task (Experiment 2). In both cases, reaction times showed an interaction between the horizontal/vertical nature of the verb's image schema, and the horizontal/vertical position of the visual stimuli. We argue that such spatial effects of verb comprehension provide evidence for the perceptual–motor character of linguistic representations.     

述情障碍成因的认知及社会机制

对述情障碍本质和形成原因的解释主要包括认知机制和社会机制两种, 认知机制认为, 述情障碍体现了在情绪认知加工上的缺陷, 主要涉及到情绪图式、心理理论和执行功能等方面; 社会机制认为, 述情障碍的产生与儿童早年的一些经历有关, 并在社会文化和社会关系中得到不断的强化, 主要涉及到社会文化、社会经济地位和家庭功能及环境等方面。未来研究要把研究视角进一步扩展到热执行功能、整合研究、提出系统的社会机制理论等方面, 在研究方法上, 注意测量工具和研究技术的进一步改进。