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ETHICS DISCUSSION: DRUG COMPANY PERKS

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On April 23, 2020

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BEFORE YOU WRITE::
Before you complete this assignment, read Chapter 19 (Technical Definitions). You must also be familiar with memo formatting from Chapter 15 (Memos).

ASSIGNMENT
1) Read through the following case studies (found on pages 3-8 of this assignment prompt), and choose the one appropriate to your major. If none of the studies apply to you, or if you do not yet have the knowledge necessary to tackle the case study for your major, choose the Default Case Study.

2) Write a memo to your instructor (Colin Tangeman), who is not a specialist in your field. Name me in the TO: of the header. However, the language of the memo will be written to the individual described in your case study; for example, the grandmother, the owner of the construction company, the technical writer, etc.

*For students who do NOT CHOOSE the default case study, you will read one of the other case studies related to specific majors (the block paragraphs) and choose key terms and concepts from the paragraph that you believe are important for the audience to understand. *You are welcome to include any concept that may not be mentioned, but which is still important or implied in the block paragraph that you read.

3) In the body of your memo, you will define your list of terms in the form of sentence definitions. Sentence definitions are written as complete grammatical structures—full sentences—and they include three parts: item, class, and distinguishing features. Examples and explanations for sentence definitions are on pages 435-436.

REQUIREMENTS
When writing your definitions, DO NOT use the Internet, textbooks, dictionaries, or any outside resource of any sort. Use your own words from your own brain. If you use a definition that is not entirely of your own creation as part of this assignment, you will receive a grade of zero. If for some reason you do decide you need to bring in a small amount of information that is not stored entirely in your own brain, you must document that information according to appropriate APA citation style. Failure to do so constitutes plagiarism. You don’t want that to happen, so ask me if you have any questions about what constitutes plagiarism.

It’s safer just to use your own words.

MEMO ORGANZIATION
Remember, the memo has specific parts: intro, body (the definitions) and brief conclusion. The overall organizational scheme is up to you, but you will be graded in part on how well you organize your memo; its page design, and how effectively you format the document. What headers will you use to help structure the memo?

Before you send me your memo, make sure your definitions meet the standards for usability. For more information on this, see the checklist on page 449.

A SUCCESSFUL DEFINITIONS MEMO WILL:
? Use appropriate memo formatting.
? Display a logical organization and attractive page design.
? Offer clear definitions of all appropriate words.
? Provide definitions that adequately classify items and clarify meaning.
? Offer definitions in plain English, using language appropriate for the audience.
? Display proper grammar and mechanics.
? Present material with concision, clarity, and fluency.
CASE STUDIES BEGIN ON THE NEXT PAGE

DEFAULT CASE STUDY

My grandmother Mary Ellen has decided to get a computer, so she can communicate with all her grandchildren on a more regular basis. She’s never had a computer before, but she’s a good typist. She has also taken many Leisure Learning courses since her retirement from her career as a third-grade teacher, so she is used to picking up new ideas quickly.

In your memo, define the following terms and concepts for her. Mary Ellen is the audience for your memo; however, you will be addressing the memo to me in the memo header.

PC
Mac
Hardware
Software
RAM
Operating System
Internet
Webpage
Flashdrive
iPad
Email
Desktop (Not the type of computer—what you see when you turn on the computer).

When writing your definitions, DO NOT use the Internet, textbooks, dictionaries, or any outside resource of any sort. Use your own words.

COMPUTER ENGINEERING AND INFORMATION SYSTEMS CASE STUDY

You have contracted with a local construction management firm to upgrade their offices to a high-speed LAN. You need to convey the following information to help your client decide between a wireless or wired LAN.

Wireless LANs and wired LANs operate in much the same way at the physical level. That is, they both use electrical energy to transmit data. One encodes its data upon an electrical impulse in a wire, and the other encodes it upon a radio or light wave. With a waveform, the amount of data which can be transmitted is theoretically, directly proportional to the frequency of the wave. For example, if a particular piece of switching equipment in a transmitter is capable of encoding (modulating) one bit of data per cycle, then a wavelength with a frequency of 10 kHz (ten thousand cycles per second) is going to carry ten times as much data as a wavelength having a frequency of 1 kHz in the same period of time. This holds true for as long as the switching equipment can match the frequency. Some modulating methods make it possible to encode up to 4 bits on a single cycle. Considering this and the high frequencies available, wireless LANs have the potential to transmit data at very high speeds. The characteristics of a wave change with respect to the rate of frequency change. The higher the frequency, the more the wave takes on the properties of light and the more it is absorbed or reflected. This has a number of implications; the main one being the fact that as the frequency increases the range of the LAN decreases due to the greater attenuation of the signal. Also, the equipment used to transmit and receive radio waves begins to strike some physical limitations as the frequency increases, so there is an upper limit to its practical application. There is a wide frequency range which could potentially be used for wireless LAN communication. The range from about 200 kHz, through the microwave range, all the way up to the top of the infrared range at around 200 THz could be utilized.

Which terms and concepts will need to be defined for your client? List and define them in your memo. When writing your definitions, DO NOT use the Internet, textbooks, dictionaries, or any outside resource of any sort. Use your own words.

CONSTRUCTION MANAGEMENT CASE STUDY

A museum in the Museum District of Houston was losing money year after year and was in danger of closing because it lacked the ability to attract new customers. The museum had not undergone any recent capital improvement because of its lack of funding. This museum is a publicly funded, not-for-profit organization. After a desperate plea from the board of directors to the state government, $900,000 was allocated to cover construction costs for an expansion project. The budget was not flexible, and no additional money was available from other sources. Because the money came from public funding, the delivery system was restricted to design-bid-build so that a fair competition would be held and the owner would receive a fair price.

To attract new customers, the expansion that was proposed included additional space for artwork as well as for a cafeteria. A local designer proposed an artistically expansive addition, which contrasted with the existing bland 30-year-old functional structure. The design specified glass, colored ceramics stone, and large spans—exactly the opposite of what existed—with the intent of changing the image of the museum. As a result of the design-bid-build process, the design and drawings were prepared without any involvement of the contractor. The estimate submitted by the designer met the $900,000 budget requirement on paper, but everyone involved up to this point focused more on the look than on the reality of cost and budget. The design was completed and publicly bid, under state regulations. Bidders picked up drawings and submitted bids, and the intention was that the award would go to the lowest bidder. Four bids came in, at $1.2, $1.25, $1.4 and $1.5 million. The procurement process was successful in the sense that there was ample competition, and the bids were relatively close for the design, but the money was not available to award the project to the lowest bidder at $1.2 million.

At this point the owner hired an additional consultant (you) who was knowledgeable in construction to overcome the owner’s lack of familiarity with construction. Which terms will the owner need explained? List and define them in your memo. When writing your definitions, DO NOT use the Internet, textbooks, dictionaries, or any outside resource of any sort. Use your own words.

MECHANICAL TECHNOLOGY CASE STUDY

You received the following email from a manager, concerning AutoCAD. You’ve asked your in-house technical writer to respond to the email with some documentation, but he doesn’t understand some of the terms.

“After spending a lot of time creating a particular dynamic block, I realized that the order of custom properties of this block as shown in the Properties Palette is not organized in an optimal order. For example I have ‘Cabinet Width’ at the top of the custom properties list, and ‘Cabinet Height’ way down near the bottom. This is going to make my Cad operators hunt around too much for the property they need to adjust. The apparent order is by creation – first created custom property is listed first, last created is shown last. I really don’t want to remake this dynamic block just to get the properties in a logical order. I was wondering if it is possible to reorder the custom properties as shown in the properties palette? Any ideas? Perhaps an AutoLisp solution?”

In your memo, list and define the terms and concepts your technical writer will need to complete the in-house documentation. When writing your definitions, DO NOT use the Internet, textbooks, dictionaries, or any outside resource of any sort. Use your own words.

LOGISTICS TECHNOLOGY CASE STUDY

You are consulting a small company in Houston about their logistics needs and they have requested a seminar on Just-in-Time manufacturing. You must convey the following information to them:

“Analysis indicated that JIT: (1) improves supplier operations, (2) enhances transportation operations with respect to inbound carriers, (3) reduces the level and improves the management of inventories, (4) does not cause overall inbound logistics costs to increase, and (5) increases the quality and performance of inbound logistics.”

In your memo, list and define the concepts that your client will need to understand. When writing your definitions, DO NOT use the Internet, textbooks, dictionaries, or any outside resource of any sort. Use your own words.

ELECTRICAL POWER CASE STUDY
You are applying for a job at a large corporation and are in an interview with a Human Resources representative with little background in your field, who asks you about your education. You must convey to him the information in this paragraph.

Students completing a major in Electrical Power Technology receive a strong foundation in measurement systems, analog and digital signal conditioning, microprocessor hardware and software, industrial electronics, and rotating machinery. Students have the opportunity to select additional coursework in control systems, electrical power, or a combination of both. Although analog electronics remain important, one of the newest and fastest growing areas is in the application of computers for control; this may be control within some manufactured product or control of some manufacturing process. The manufacturers of electrical systems and machines need electrical power technologists who are familiar with machines and machine controls, both traditional and computer-controlled. The electrical industry provides and controls the transformers, motors, generators, switch gear, and protection equipment required to power homes, businesses, and industries. Electrical power technologists plan electrical systems and modifications to existing electrical systems that generate and use large amounts of electricity required for distribution networks that are economical, safe, and functional.

Which terms and concepts will the HR rep need defined? List and define them in your memo. When writing your definitions, DO NOT use the Internet, textbooks, dictionaries, or any outside resource of any sort. Use your own words.

résumé and Cover Letter (50 points)
Read chapter 18 of your textbook before you complete this three-part assignment.

1) Find a job listing that interests you and relates to your educational or employment background; this may include an internship or a dream job at IBM or Boeing. You can find job postings through Monster.com, the UH Career Center database, the Houston Chronicle classifieds, or any of the venues recommended by your textbook in the section, Explore Online Resources on page 404.

When you turn in the final copy of your assignment, include the job announcement with it.

2) Write a persuasive résumé in appropriate format. Consider whether you should have a reverse chronological, functional, or combination résumé, and organize your résumé accordingly. *Please refer to the folder (Resume Handouts) under current links on Blackboard for samples and advice on effective strategies for drafting your résumé.
3) Write a persuasive job application letter (cover letter) to accompany your résumé.

A successful résumé will:
Display appropriate, attractive, professional format and style.
Emphasize your strongest skills through the organization of résumé parts (career objective, education, work experience, etc.).
Use action verbs to highlight skills and accomplishments.
Be free of errors in grammar and mechanics.
Résumés with more than 3 proof-reading errors will not be eligible for an A.
Demonstrate clarity, concision, and fluency.
Include an attached job listing.

A successful cover letter will:
Refer to the name of an employee in the company, if possible.
Refer to the source of your information (Monster.com, UH Career Center, etc.).
Refer to the job title and describe in detail how your qualifications fit the requirements.
Use the body of the letter to build interest and to persuade the employer to hire you.
Motivate action in its closing.
Demonstrate clarity, concision, and fluency.
Avoid errors in grammar, mechanics, and style.
Grant Proposal (70 points)

INSTRUCTIONS:
Read Chapter 24 (Proposals) before completing this project. In addition, review the website for the Community-Campus Partnership for Health (CCPH). http://depts.washington.edu/ccph/.
Using the background information provided below, write a grant proposal asking for a CCPH Award. The length of the grant will be a minimum of two-pages of single-spaced text. *This does not include your structured abstract, or any graphs, charts, or tables. The structured abstract should be included on its own separate page, and comes immediately after the Table of Contents.

Your proposal will have these following sections, each of which is defined at the end of this assignment sheet. 1) Cover Page/Table of Contents; 2) Structured Abstract; 3) Overview; 4) Background; 5) Statement of Problem; 6) Plan, Method, and Schedule 7) Feasibility 8)Staffing; 9) Budget; and 10) Conclusion; 10) Works Cited.

Use the funding proposal for the SMU Torch on p. 606 as a basic model for your own project. Remember, these are only models and should not restrict your own creative ideas or organizational plan. In addition, I have provided two students samples on Blackboard.

What am I doing? Summary of Grant Proposal

You will be writing a grant proposal requesting start-up funds for an original organization that you would like to create. Your organization (imagine an original name and acronym) must meet the CCPH criteria—the CCPH is the non-profit group that would potentially reward you with the funding. (See next page for links to CCPH and description of its values).

1) Your organization must be based out of an academic university (probably an appropriate department in the University of Houston) and will be addressing a problem in the local community. You must identity and describe your community and provide compelling data (research) on the nature of the problem, and offer methods on how it could be alleviated or resolved. As a result, you will then describe the practical service that your organization would offer and how it is uniquely designed to offer assistance to the community.

Here is an example of an actual organization that meets the CCPH criteria and would (hypothetically) qualify for funding: Cougars for Kids. http://www.tech.uh.edu/cougarsforkids/ .

This organization is based out of the University of Houston’s College of Technology and relies upon student volunteers and faculty mentors to function. Its chosen community are children in Houston area hospitals who are admitted to extended care facilities, and often fall behind in school, suffer from emotional stress, and benefit from the attention of college-age students who visit the children at the hospital. The services our UH students offer include academic tutoring, guided recreation, mentoring and companionship.

*Cougars for Kids is only one example. You will choose your own community, problem, and focus for your organization.
Background on CCPH:
The Community-Campus Partnership for Health promotes health (broadly defined) through partnerships between communities and higher education institutions. The intent of the CCPH award is to highlight the power and potential of community-campus partnerships as a strategy for social justice. The award recognizes partnerships that are striving to achieve the systems and policy changes needed to overcome the root causes of health, social and economic inequalities.

As a grant writer for your organization you will be writing a persuasive grant proposal that presents a realistic project that’s in need of funding. You will be applying to the CCPH with the purpose of being chosen to receive the annual CCPH Award.

? Review the criteria and principles for the CCPH Award at the following link: http://depts.washington.edu/ccph/pdf_files/Award09guidelines.pdf
? Past award recipients:
http://depts.washington.edu/ccph/awardsrecipients.html.

IMPORTANT:
!!!Keep in mind that the ACTUAL award only offers a publication, press conference, and invitation to a conference!!! You, however, will be writing your proposal as if the CCPH also provides a FINANCIAL GRANT to its award recipients. In other words, you are looking for money to fund your project.

BACKGROUND:
The Community-Campus Partnership for Health promotes health (broadly defined) through partnerships between communities and higher education institutions. The intent of the CCPH award is to highlight the power and potential of community-campus partnerships as a strategy for social justice. The award recognizes partnerships that are striving to achieve the systems and policy changes needed to overcome the root causes of health, social and economic inequalities.

FUNDING AMOUNT: There is no exact dollar amount, but the range should include projects that range from 10s of thousands of dollars to more substantial projects that might require a few hundred thousand (LIMIT: under half a million). Consider the CCPH award to be start-up money for your organization for a single-year. Don’t worry about the resources required to sustain the project—questions of sustainability will be addressed through the application of future grants.

TIPS FOR WRITING YOUR PROPOSAL:
Write your proposal with the CCPH’s principles and intent clearly in mind: http://depts.washington.edu/ccph/pdf_files/Award09guidelines.pdf
Be creative. You’re free to come up with any idea you can that would speak to the principles of the CCPH.
1) Cover Page and Table of Contents
a. See book sample.
2) Structured Abstract
a. Sample posted under Current Links on Blackboard
3) Overview
a. See p. 609 for the goals of the introduction. Hook the audience’s interest. An effective overview offers a concise and persuasive statement of the key participants and problems addressed in the proposal. Briefly identify your organization, the community you’ve chosen, and the problem afflicting the community.
4) Background and Statement of Problem
Organize these sections in any order that you find most useful,
while providing the information listed below. Use any Headers that
are useful in the organization scheme.

a. Provide details on the background of the community. You may use research and statistical or demographic data to describe this community. Discuss the problem/s affecting this community. Again, this would be a logical place for persuasive research.
b. Introduce your proposed organization. Argue the ways that the community would benefit from a partnership with your organization. Remember that all business writing should be audience-oriented, purposeful, and economical. (The practical workings of the organization will be covered in next section).
c. Describe how the CCPH award will allow you foster a partnership between the community and your University sponsored organization.
In what way does your proposal embody the CCPH’s principles and values?
5) Plan/Method/Schedule
a. In this section, you will tell the CCPH exactly how you plan to achieve your objectives. Be specific about your goals, and your method. A schedule OR phases of events may be useful to include. Describe the workings of the organization and how it will function in a practical context. Is there a time-table for how each step, stage, or phase of the project will be initiated? What goals do you hope to achieve at each phase?

6) Feasibility
a. A paragraph that provides a persuasive synopsis that indicates the probable success for your project; it often takes into account issues related to economics, technology, as well as social and cultural challenges.

7) Staffing:
a. DO NOT use the sample from the SMU Torch. Your staffing section
should be more specific than what the textbook provides and therefore the “MECHA student sample” is far more precise. Choose appropriate staff members and use titles and roles that suggest the hierarchy and scale of your organization: Managers, Associates, Coordinators, Staff, etc. Perhaps include information on the qualifications required for each position.
b. A table or chart may be useful for this section.

8) Budget:
a. Make up the numbers.
b. You’ll have to decide how specific to be. Is this the kind of project that needs line-by-line budgetary information, tables, pie charts, or can you group tasks into categories and discuss how much each category will cost?

9) Conclusion:
a. Unlike some business proposals, grant proposals should not include a deadline date for a business offer. Rather, you should remind the reader of the key benefits of your plan and try to motivate action. This is the last opportunity to compel your audience to action—the conclusion is typically short, concise, and persuasive.

10) References:
a. Your proposal will have a research component that will include at least 5 outside sources to support your argument. Online sources are allowed. Sources should be documented using correct APA format for in-text citations and work cited page.
b. Include a works cited page at the end of your proposal. See your textbook beginning on page 697 for APA citation format, also the Owl Purdue website provides multiple samples.

Introductory Letter (25 points)

Read chapter 17 (Workplace Letters) to complete this assignment. In addition, chapters 10 and 11 also include useful information on paragraphing, tone, audience, style, as well as editing strategies.

Write a one-page business letter introducing yourself to Mr.Tangeman (I am your recipient. Keep me in mind as you write; who am I, what do I care about, how much information do I need, and what is the nature of our relationship?). You may use block or modified block format. Use Times New Roman as your font. Do not use anything below a 10pt font size, and nothing larger than 12pt. This letter should be single-spaced and will include only one line of space between “body paragraphs.”

In the book you will find multiple examples of business letters: letters requesting an interview, arguable claim letters, inquiry letters, and cover letters. The purpose of this assignment, however, is to introduce yourself. Do not copy the language you find in the book, or else you run the risk of plagiarizing.

Organize your response to these questions in any order you like, but be sure to answer the following questions in your letter:
Introduce relevant personal information.
Describe past experiences (i.e., writing experience) that prepare you for
this class; academic and professional examples would be appropriate.
Explain the role of this class in your career and educational plans, and how the skills practiced in this course may be useful to you.
Discuss what you expect from this class. Are there are any projects or writing assignments that are of particular interest to you? How so?

A successful Introductory Letter will:
Conform to business letter format, including addresses for writer and reader, correct date format, correct line spacing, and correct margin justification.
Display professional tone and content.
Illustrate an awareness of target audience.
Organize its content logically.
Use adequate detail (be specific!).
Demonstrate concision.

My address:

University Of Houston
4800 Calhoun Rd-T2-339 Houston, TX 77004
discussions:
ETHICS DISCUSSION: DRUG COMPANY PERKS (25 Points)
INSTRUCTIONS:

Download and read the articles attached to the first message in this discussion topic (titled “READING SELECTIONS”). Write a 350-500 WORD response to the reading selections, and post your response to the discussion board. Your response should take one of the following forms:

1) an exploration of one or more of the suggested discussion questions included in this assignment,
2) an examination of a separate issue that interests you from this week’s reading or viewing selection

Regardless of what you choose to write about, be sure to support your position with specific examples and quotes from the text. If you choose to write on a topic that another student has already written on, say something new about the subject. If you agree with another student, provide additional reasons to support your position. If you disagree with another student, be respectful in your response, and be clear about why you disagree. You may complete this assignment either as one long posting or as several shorter postings.
SUGGESTED DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:
1) What, if anything, is problematic about accepting gifts from people who are trying to solicit your business? Use specific examples from the attached reading to explain your answer.

2) Is it ever ethical for pharmaceutical companies to offer gifts or other perks to physicians? What are the criteria of acceptability (or unacceptability)? Explain your answer using specific examples from the attached reading.

3) Should the U.S. government or the American Medical Association place restrictions on the gifts and perks drug companies are allowed to offer physicians? Why or why not? Use specific examples from the reading in your answer.
A FEW IMPORTANT NOTES:

* I don’t make detailed grading comments on discussion assignments, but I am happy to discuss grades with students individually over email, by phone, or at my office hours. Please don’t hesitate to contact me if you have questions or concerns.

* While I don’t respond to every discussion board posting, I do read them all carefully. In your answers feel free to bring in examples, not only from the assigned reading, but also from books, movies, your own life, current events, or any other sources that seem pertinent to the discussion. I won’t be looking for a particular answer to each question asked; instead, I will be grading these assignments on the originality, clarity, and complexity of your ideas.
Drug Makers Pay for Lunch as They Pitch

By STEPHANIE SAUL

Anyone who thinks there is no such thing as a free lunch has never visited 3003 New Hyde Park Road, a four-story medical building on Long Island, where they are delivered almost every day.
On a recent Tuesday, they began arriving around noon. Steaming containers of Chinese food were destined for the 20 or so doctors and employees of Nassau Queens Pulmonary Associates. The drug maker Merck paid the $258 bill.
A deliveryman carrying trays of gourmet sandwiches sashayed past patients at Advanced Internal Medicine. The bill showed that Takeda Pharmaceuticals was picking up the bill. The doctors in the group must have liked the sandwiches. The next day, the exact same delivery came in, paid for by Cephalon.
Free lunches like those at the medical building in New Hyde Park, N.Y., occur regularly at doctors’ offices nationwide, where delivery people arrive with lunch for the whole office, ordered and paid for by drug makers to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars a year.
Like the “free” vacation that comes with a time-share pitch attached, the lunches go down along with a pitch from pharmaceutical representatives hoping to bolster prescription sales. The cost of the lunches is ultimately factored in to drug company marketing expenses, working its way into the price of prescription drugs.
Doing business over lunch is a common practice in many fields, but drug makers have honed it to perfection, particularly since 2002, when the drug industry adopted a new code banning many other free enticements — golf outings, athletic tickets, trips and lavish dinners for doctors. The code gives approval to modest meals in the course of business. And conventional wisdom in both the pharmaceutical industry and the medical profession is that a lunch is too small to pose an ethical problem. But a growing number of critics say that even those small lunches should be banned.
A former pharmaceutical representative, Kathleen Slattery-Moschkau, called lunch “incredibly effective” in lifting pharmaceutical sales for the companies where she worked, Bristol-Myers Squibb and Johnson & Johnson.
“We got the numbers of what the physicians were prescribing. If I brought in lunch one week, I could see the following week if that lunch had an impact,” Ms. Slattery-Moschkau said.
Dr. John G. Scott, assistant professor of family medicine at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in New Brunswick, N.J., is examining the interaction between medical practices and pharmaceutical representatives.
“We found that some offices get breakfast and lunch every day,” said Dr. Scott, who calls lunch the “currency” that buys access to doctors’ offices for drug representatives. He also noted that some doctors were hard pressed to meet payrolls and that the lunches provided an added benefit for their employees.
“Essentially, we feel that most of what the pharmaceutical reps do works at an unconscious level,” Dr. Scott said. He said most doctors said they were not influenced by the food deliveries and other small gifts. But, he added, “They do influence prescribing.”
The $258 Merck lunch, for example, cost the company only $10.75 a person and fell clearly within industry guidelines allowing modest meals. But it could easily return thousands of dollars for the drug maker in prescriptions for the osteoporosis medication Fosamax and the asthma treatment Singulair, the two drugs discussed during lunch with two Merck representatives.
An official of Merck’s sales and marketing division, Patrick T. Davish, says his company views lunch meetings as appropriate and “a good time to sit around and talk about the clinical properties of your drug and the disease categories you deal with.” Spokesmen for both Takeda and Cephalon emphasize that the lunches they pay for are modest.
Dr. Scott cited several studies that show that the lunches — plus small gifts like pens and sticky notepads, along with drug samples — can lead doctors to prescribe the more expensive brand names when cheaper generic drugs would be as effective.
Such concerns have spurred the effort to ban lunches. The movement is making headway nationwide, as opponents of the practice cite ethics questions. The hospital at the University of Pennsylvania became the latest large institution barring industry-paid lunches, effective July 1, according to its medical director, Dr. Patrick J. Brennan.
“It curries favor and it creates influence, and it introduces influences into decision-making processes that we think ought not to be there,” Dr. Brennan said.
Similar rules have been adopted recently at several other academic medical centers. When the University of Michigan Health System banned industry lunches last year, officials calculated that they had been worth $2.5 million annually.
In Madras, Ore., meanwhile, a group of internists earlier this year banned not only lunch but also visits by drug representatives. Even in Madras, a rural town of about 5,000, the group got visits from more than 30 drug representatives a month, including two or three lunches.
“The complaints that I would get from my patients were, ‘You’re 15 minutes late to see me.’ ” said Dr. David V. Evans, a member of the group. “ ‘O.K., I was back there talking to a drug rep.’ That wasn’t such a good thing.”
Dr. Evans added, “It’s an issue of professionalism and integrity, really.”
The pharmaceutical industry employs about 90,000 representatives. While some patients grumble about their ubiquitous presence in medical office waiting rooms — and many are aware of lunch deliveries — others say the intrusion is worthwhile in exchange for the free drug samples.
“The doctors I go to only see them at certain times,” said Arnold Dimond of Glen Oaks, N.Y., who was leaving the New Hyde Park building recently, carrying a plastic bag of drug samples. “The samples save you quite a bit of money, too.”

One of the most vocal opponents of free lunch is Dr. Bob Goodman, a Manhattan internist who formed an organization called No Free Lunch.
“I’d say that lunches are going to be one of the last things to go,” Dr. Goodman said. “The interesting thing is that it’s generally not something doctors are ashamed about. That’s why I find this thing so fascinating. They don’t think they’re doing anything wrong.”
At 3003 New Hyde Park Road most of the doctors contacted declined to be interviewed for this article. But one, Dr. Javier Morales, said the samples that representatives bring to his office are helpful for low-income patients.
And Scott M. Lassman, senior assistant general counsel for the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, said: “It’s our feeling that a modest meal is not the type of thing that is going to interfere with the independence of a health care practitioner. It’s really a recognition that these folks are extremely busy. They don’t have time to talk. Perhaps the only time they do have time to talk is over lunch or dinner. So we thought it was appropriate for the sales rep to pay for that.”
Not every doctor’s office gets free lunches at 3003 New Hyde Park Road, though many do. The deliveries often start even before lunchtime, with representatives bringing in pastries and large containers of coffee from Starbucks or Dunkin’ Donuts.
Ms. Slattery-Moschkau, the former pharmaceutical representative, said that nurses and staff members in some offices were quite demanding about lunch.
“It was almost a game, and it was unbelievable the animosity they would show if you did not bring the right kind of food, or if it was the third time they had pizza that week,” said Ms. Slattery-Moschkau, who left the industry in 2002 and recently wrote and directed the documentary “Money Talks,” in which the practice of lunch is discussed.
Midweek lunches, when all the doctors are sure to be in the office, are considered prime time.
“Wednesdays are big,” said Larry Plompen of West Islip, N.Y., who peddles lunch and coffee out of a refrigerated truck at 3003 New Hyde Park Road. Several years ago, Mr. Plompen said, a drug company purchased lunch from his truck for the entire staff of a large practice in the building.
Other entrepreneurs have also capitalized on the business — a segment of the restaurant industry that one national lunch-ordering company, Lunch and Earn, estimates is worth $4 million a day, or as much as $1 billion a year. A founder of that company, Amy Kristjanson, a former pharmaceutical representative, said her numbers were based on a calculation of lunch spending by representatives for the top 10 pharmaceutical companies.
Mr. Lassman said he was not aware of any industrywide figure for the cost of such lunches. But various sales representatives, pharmaceutical companies and the lunch delivery industry supplied estimates of how much is spent for lunch. Judy Kay Moore, spokeswoman for Eli Lilly, for instance, said that company’s representatives spend $500 to $750 a month for lunches. Joseph R. Carolan, an owner of Casa Mia’s in Nottingham, Md., which does a large pharmaceutical lunch delivery business in the Baltimore area, said the average representative he deals with has a monthly lunch budget of close to $2,000.
Mr. Carolan said his lunch business — about 30 to 40 orders a day — exploded after the new industry marketing code was adopted in 2002.
“I got into this because the feds cracked down on the more extravagant things they were doing: the dinners, courtside N.B.A. games, flying them to the islands.” Mr. Carolan said.
He is also on the forefront of another marketing trend: rewards programs for pharmaceutical representatives.
One who spends $5,000 at Casa Mia’s, for example, can get a $100 gift certificate to Nordstrom, one month of tanning, or a Swedish massage with a manicure and pedicure.
Ms. Kristjanson, the former representative who founded Lunch and Earn, said that lunch represented a fundamental shift in the business.
“Reps used to have more freedom,” Ms. Kristjanson said. “Lunch is sort of what it’s come down to.”

HEALTHY CHEMICALS HYPOTHETICAL CASE STUDIES:
Case A1: Healthy Chemicals, Inc. has just received FDA approval for Calmitrol, a new anti-hypertensive agent. Calmitrol is the first of a new class of magnesium channel blockers to obtain FDA approval, and it promises to be an important breakthrough in the treatment of hypertension. Healthy Chemicals wants to disseminate the news about this effective drug as rapidly as possible. They propose to sponsor two weekend conferences on Calmitrol (one at the Hotel Radisson in Cancun and one at the Coronado Hotel in San Diego) for physicians who are known to be hypertension specialists. These specialists will be offered a three day all-expense-paid trip (including airfare and a $250 incidental expense voucher) to one of the two conferences. The meetings will be purely informational in nature; attendees will not in any way be required to commit themselves to prescribing Calmitrol. Those who are interested in participating in a post-marketing (Phase 4) monitoring protocol will receive additional information relevant to that program.
Case A2 Healthy Chemicals, Inc. sponsors a program of scholarships (travel expenses) for a certain number of medical students to attend the national meetings of the American Medical Student Association, the American College of Physicians, and other medical organizations. These scholarships are awarded on a competitive basis at each medical school, according to guidelines decided by that school. Each year Healthy Chemicals holds open receptions at these meetings to which the company invites student scholarship recipients.
Case A3: As a method of promoting its products, Healthy Chemicals sponsors series of dinner-seminars in various metropolitan areas. A typical program might include a dinner, followed by two speakers. One speaker is usually a professor at a local medical school who will talk about a topic like “Control of Blood Pressure With Magnesium Channel Blockers,” while the second is a Healthy Chemical representative who presents information about the company’s products. Generally, a broad cross-section of relevant practitioners are invited to these dinner-seminars. The guest receives a free dinner and usually a $200 honorarium for attending. The medical school professor receives a customary honorarium (usually $750) for presenting his or her talk
Case A4 Healthy Chemicals, Inc. provides its company representatives with discretionary funds to support residency training programs in hospitals. The company will provide money to purchase lunch (pizza, hero sandwiches, etc.) for various noon conferences. The representative usually sets up his or her display outside the conference room. Attendees can go up and speak to the representative if they wish to do so.
Case A5 As part of its post-marketing surveillance program, Healthy Chemicals, Inc. relies on practicing physicians to enlist some of their patients to participate in Phase 4 studies. In the case of Calmitrol, physicians are invited to enroll middle-aged patients with moderate hypertension. Patients who consent to participate receive a free supply of Calmitrol (retail cost $126/month) and are seen every two months (for one year) for blood pressure checks by their physician. At each visit physicians complete Calmitrol Phase 4 data forms which include information about blood pressure control, side effects, and patient satisfaction. Participating physicians receive $250 for each patient they enroll. While the target number of patients is somewhat open-ended, Healthy Chemicals encourages an “n” of 10-20 patients per practice. Physicians who participate in a second or third study receive free FAX machines for their offices. They can then FAX the data to Healthy Chemicals, Inc.
Case A6 Each year Healthy Chemicals, Inc. gives every graduating medical student in the United States a gift textbook. Fourth year students indicate on a questionnaire which of four standard textbooks they would prefer, and the book is sent to them at their home address.
Case A7 Healthy Chemicals, Inc. sponsors a display at the annual American College of Physicians meeting. Physicians who come to the display receive promotional material about various new products, and can use a bank of computers (on-line with the National Library of Medicine) to perform medical literature searches on topics of their choice. When physicians have completed their search, Healthy Chemicals representatives send the information to company headquarters. The articles are then copied and a complete complimentary set sent to the physician’s office. Also at the display, physicians can sign up for the Healthy Chemicals Continuing Education Program. This program is designed for busy physicians who do not have the time or resources to look up the latest information on a topic, or who are having trouble getting the answer to a medical question. Participants can call an 800 number at any time, 24 hours a day, and tell a Healthy Chemicals Info Whiz what their need is. The Info Whiz will then find an answer and get back to the physician within a few hours, and will follow-up by sending appropriate written material
Descusion #2
Prior to completing this assignment you should read the “Selected Reading” that is posted as the first discussion board. Write a 350-500 WORD response and post your response to the discussion board. Your response should take one of the following forms:

1) An exploration of the suggested discussion questions included in this assignment.
2) An examination of any issue related to the article. In other words, use the topic as a launching point for the writing of your own argument.
Regardless of what you choose to write about, be sure to support your position with specific examples, quotes, facts, observations. If you choose to write on a topic that another student has already written on, say something new about the subject. If you agree with another student, provide additional reasons to support your position. If you disagree with another student, be respectful in your response, and be clear about why you disagree. You may complete this assignment either as one long posting or as several shorter postings.
SUGGESTED DISCUSSION QUESTION:

1) Take a stand in regard to the author’s position. Do you agree or disagree with his premise? Why or why not?
If you agree with the author, what about his argument do you find compelling? Offer supplementary evidence from your own observations or experience that would further support the article.
2) If you disagree with the author, explain why his position is over-stated? Do you feel that the benefits of the internet outweigh the losses? How so?

discussion board postings, be respectful of other members of the class. You are free to disagree with anything posted on the discussion board—in fact, I encourage debate. If you do disagree with something that’s been posted, however, be polite in your response. While I don’t anticipate any problems in this area, I do reserve the right to lower the grade of any student who does not show respect for the other members of the class. Also, if you feel that another student has posted something inappropriate on the discussion board, please contact me rather than addressing your complaint over the discussion board.

Where does it end? Sergey Brin and Larry Page, the gifted young men who founded Google while pursuing doctoral degrees in computer science at Stanford, speak frequently of their desire to turn their search engine into an artificial intelligence, a HAL-like machine that might be connected directly to our brains. “The ultimate search engine is something as smart as people—or smarter,” Page said in a speech a few years back. “For us, working on search is a way to work on artificial intelligence.” In a 2004 interview with Newsweek, Brin said, “Certainly if you had all the world’s information directly attached to your brain, or an artificial brain that was smarter than your brain, you’d be better off.” Last year, Page told a convention of scientists that Google is “really trying to build artificial intelligence and to do it on a large scale.”
Such an ambition is a natural one, even an admirable one, for a pair of math whizzes with vast quantities of cash at their disposal and a small army of computer scientists in their employ. A fundamentally scientific enterprise, Google is motivated by a desire to use technology, in Eric Schmidt’s words, “to solve problems that have never been solved before,” and artificial intelligence is the hardest problem out there. Why wouldn’t Brin and Page want to be the ones to crack it?
Still, their easy assumption that we’d all “be better off” if our brains were supplemented, or even replaced, by an artificial intelligence is unsettling. It suggests a belief that intelligence is the output of a mechanical process, a series of discrete steps that can be isolated, measured, and optimized. In Google’s world, the world we enter when we go online, there’s little place for the fuzziness of contemplation. Ambiguity is not an opening for insight but a bug to be fixed. The human brain is just an outdated computer that needs a faster processor and a bigger hard drive.
The idea that our minds should operate as high-speed data-processing machines is not only built into the workings of the Internet, it is the network’s reigning business model as well. The faster we surf across the Web—the more links we click and pages we view—the more opportunities Google and other companies gain to collect information about us and to feed us advertisements. Most of the proprietors of the commercial Internet have a financial stake in collecting the crumbs of data we leave behind as we flit from link to link—the more crumbs, the better. The last thing these companies want is to encourage leisurely reading or slow, concentrated thought. It’s in their economic interest to drive us to distraction.
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200807/google

Descusion # 3
INSTRUCTIONS:

Download and read the articles attached to the first message in this discussion topic (titled “READING SELECTIONS”). Write a 350-500 WORD response to the reading selection, and post your response to the discussion board.

Regardless of what you choose to write about, be sure to support your position with specific examples and quotes from the text, and from any relevant outside sources.

A FEW IMPORTANT NOTES:
* I don’t make detailed grading comments on discussion assignments, but I am happy to discuss grades with students individually over email, by phone, or at my office hours. Please don’t hesitate to contact me if you have questions or concerns.

* While I don’t respond to every discussion board posting, I do read them all carefully. I will enter the discussion with comments and suggestions (either on the board or by email) as it seems appropriate, and I encourage students to respond to my postings.

* In your answers feel free to bring in examples, not only from the assigned reading, but also from books, movies, your own life, current events, or any other sources that seem pertinent to the discussion. I won’t be looking for a particular answer to each question asked; instead, I will be grading these assignments on the originality, clarity, and complexity of your ideas.
Stop the Great Firewall of America
Editorial: New York Times
By Rebecca Mackinnon
November 15, 2011
China operates the world’s most elaborate and opaque system of Internet censorship. But Congress, under pressure to take action against the theft of intellectual property, is considering misguided legislation that would strengthen China’s Great Firewall and even bring major features of it to America.
The legislation — the Protect IP Act, which has been introduced in the Senate, and a House version known as the Stop Online Piracy Act — have an impressive array of well-financed backers, including the United States Chamber of Commerce, the Motion Picture Association of America, the American Federation of Musicians, the Directors Guild of America, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters and the Screen Actors Guild. The bills aim not to censor political or religious speech as China does, but to protect American intellectual property. Alarm at the infringement of creative works through the Internet is justifiable. The solutions offered by the legislation, however, threaten to inflict collateral damage on democratic discourse and dissent both at home and around the world.
The bills would empower the attorney general to create a blacklist of sites to be blocked by Internet service providers, search engines, payment providers and advertising networks, all without a court hearing or a trial. The House version goes further, allowing private companies to sue service providers for even briefly and unknowingly hosting content that infringes on copyright — a sharp change from current law, which protects the service providers from civil liability if they remove the problematic content immediately upon notification. The intention is not the same as China’s Great Firewall, a nationwide system of Web censorship, but the practical effect could be similar.
Abuses under existing American law serve as troubling predictors for the kinds of abuse by private actors that the House bill would make possible. Take, for example, the cease-and-desist letters that Diebold, a maker of voting machines, sent in 2003, demanding that Internet service providers shut down Web sites that had published internal company e-mails about problems with the company’s voting machines. The letter cited copyright violations, and most of the service providers took down the content without question, despite the strong case to be made that the material was speech protected under the First Amendment.
The House bill would also emulate China’s system of corporate “self-discipline,” making companies liable for users’ actions. The burden would be on the Web site operator to prove that the site was not being used for copyright infringement. The effect on user-generated sites like YouTube would be chilling.
YouTube, Twitter and Facebook have played an important role in political movements from Tahrir Square to Zuccotti Park. At present, social networking services are protected by a “safe harbor” provision of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which grants Web sites immunity from prosecution as long as they act in good faith to take down infringing content as soon as rights-holders point it out to them. The House bill would destroy that immunity, putting the onus on YouTube to vet videos in advance or risk legal action. It would put Twitter in a similar position to that of its Chinese cousin, Weibo, which reportedly employs around 1,000 people to monitor and censor user content and keep the company in good standing with authorities.
Compliance with the Stop Online Piracy Act would require huge overhead spending by Internet companies for staff and technologies dedicated to monitoring users and censoring any infringing material from being posted or transmitted. This in turn would create daunting financial burdens and legal risks for start-up companies, making it much harder for brilliant young entrepreneurs with limited resources to create small and innovative Internet companies that empower citizens and change the world.
Adding to the threat to free speech, recent academic research on global Internet censorship has found that in countries where heavy legal liability is imposed on companies, employees tasked with day-to-day censorship jobs have a strong incentive to play it safe and over-censor — even in the case of content whose legality might stand a good chance of holding up in a court of law. Why invite legal hassle when you can just hit “delete”?
The potential for abuse of power through digital networks — upon which we as citizens now depend for nearly everything, including our politics — is one of the most insidious threats to democracy in the Internet age. We live in a time of tremendous political polarization. Public trust in both government and corporations is low, and deservedly so. This is no time for politicians and industry lobbyists in Washington to be devising new Internet censorship mechanisms, adding new opportunities for abuse of corporate and government power over online speech. While American intellectual property deserves protection, that protection must be won and defended in a manner that does not stifle innovation, erode due process under the law, and weaken the protection of political and civil rights on the Internet.
Rebecca MacKinnon, a senior fellow at the New America Foundation and a founder of Global Voices Online, is the author of the forthcoming “Consent of the Networked: The Worldwide Struggle for Internet Freedom.”

Write a constructive critique of Bhuiyan (2011), in terms of the questions asked and not asked, the answers given and not given, and the comparisons made and not made
Include the DEEP analysis (Describe, Explain, Evaluate, Prescribe)
Include- Abduction, Induction, Deduction, Fallacies
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