Show r ! h I V i i i 11 Opinion 12 Crossword 13 The Herald Journal Logan Utah Tuesday March No need to Vitamin By Ed Bfonz 142000 neiiRKBi? The time is coming Gf when parents will pick their babies' characteristics PhD DEAR DR BLONZ: I read about the latest study that says that taking S00 milligrams of vitamin C every day causes heart disease Is this vitamin Cbeart disease link for real? I have been taking vitamin C for many yeius and will stop if I have to — GC Independence Mo DEAR jG: Do vitamin C supplements increase the risk of heart disease? We might think so if we rdied solely on news reports coining out Of an American Heart Association meeting But don't toss your tablets yet the study in question was not designed to show cause and effect and it didn’t undergo the same level of scrutiny as studies that appear in v ' scientific journals Let’s check out what we know At this year’s annual -American Heart Association meet" there was a report of a study that ing followed 573 healthy middle-age- d men and women who work for an electric utility in Los Angeles-Abou- t 30 percent took various vitamin supplements oa a regular basis The sci- entists recorded changes in overall health and no relationship was found between vitamin C and any health problems One of the measures used however was an ultrasound scan of the volunteers’ carotid arteries die carotids are the vessels that bring Mood to die brain The study found that individu- als who took 500 milligrams of vita- min C daily for at least a year had twice fee arterial thickening of those who avoided supplements If this were all die information we bad on vitamin C and its relationship with heart disease it might certainly be cause for coocem But it is important to realize that such information ' doesn’t really tell you what's going on or what is causmg the effect This was an epidemiological study which is a type of research that records the incidence of disease in a defined group and looks at other variables such as genetics activity level foods eaten or in this case vitamin C intake As data from such studies are analyzed scientists can see if the incidence rtf disease coinrides with ' the presence of any of the measured variables This type of research is valuable in that it can help identify factors that may play a role in the disease process Epidemiological findings though are limited Tliey can’t explain what’s going on they can only make suggestions The final answers must await studies designed to uncover cause and effect One of die more telling epidemiological results for example found that physicians who eat more meat and consume more alcohol happen to d the risk of dying in a have Does this mean we crash plane should encourage doctors to grab a burger and a beer before they board their flights? Needless to say we need understand a plausible mechanism before we can give full credence to the results of a work of epidemiology Another factor at play here is that the results in question were announced at a scientific meeting Data presented in this manner are not subject to die same level of scrutiny as are the studtampearing in jouinaK This type of data often ends up in a journal but in ! some cases a more critical review of the data causes die implications of die conclusions to shrink dramatically What do we know about the reUh tionship between vitamin C and heart : disease? There is already evidence that individuals having higher Mood levels of vitamin C tend to have high- er levels of HDL the “highly desir- -' able” carrier of cholesterol in the blood Vitamin C also serves as an antioxidant working with vitamin E to help prevent the types of oxidative damage that are associated with the heart disease process Vitamin C has also been associated with lower Mood pressure a decreased incidence of spasm in the : coronary arteries and a decreased “stickiness” of blood cells — all factors that tend to protect against heart disease By Daniel Q Haney AP Medical Editor : ‘ be ’ - over-the-horiz-on AP photo the Program on Medicine Technofbgy and Society at UCLA's School of Medicine poses for a photo at Ihe UCLA campus earlier this year irf Westwood Calif Stock la an authority In the emerging field of human germline engineering which would use genetic maniputationbefore birth to Improvepsopto's Intelligence physical traits dtoease resistance larkj other characteristics Dr Gregory Stock director of Life in ’ ! jg i-- the brave new world By Matt If you can't play the piano sue your n o pp l 1 fr : one-thir- peer-review- could guaranuppose parents-to-tee their children will grow up to be unusually healthy Or extra smart Or maybe just a little better looking than mom and dad Sound pretty good? Now suppose that guarantee level a of planning that goes way requires beyond the usual prenatal care Suppose it requires some fiddling with the future kids’ DNA adding a few genes here and there to slow down aging or rev up the brain circuitry or lock in resistance to viruses Still sound good? Even if your answer is a definite no some scientists believe many parents will find this a very attractive option For now the choice is science fiction — but just barely so The time is coming many scientists say when parents will pick their children’s genes From the menu of possibilities parents might select genes to maketheir babies resist common diseases and infectious things like cancer AIDS heart attacks and Alzheimer's disease Maybe they would like their children to have fabulous memories or winning personalities or a talent for playing die piano A couple of extra inches of height and a thick head pf hair could be nice too To hear these scientists talk all of this and much more will be possible in the future “There's nothing beyond tinkering” says Lee Silver a Princetoa biologist Not this year or next probably and maybe not in the next 10 or even 20 years But these scientists predict the amazing breakthroughs in genetically engineering lab mice and farm critters will eventually be applied to the animals at the top of the food chain Us “It’s not a question of ‘if but ‘when’ and ‘how this will occur" says Gregory Stock head of the Program on Medicine Technology and Sqdety at UCLAVSchool of Medicine Stock and Silver are visionaries in their field men who enjoy painting die big picture of an science called human germline refers to the sperm and Germline engineering are These scientists talking about changing egg at the the genetic makeup of a person-to-b- e moment of conception Something like this: Insert a block of new " genes into a freshly fertilized egg The one cell becomes two then four then eight Each new version carries die extra information In nine Continued on Page 20 Crenson AP National Writer deuce is on the brink of handing us the key to our own creation of giving us the power to redesign ourselves There is enormous potential for good Diseases could be eradicated death forestalled human potential extended But behind that promise lurks a long cold shadow of doubt What becomes of parenthood of individuality of the notion of fate in a world in which human beings are not just born but engineered? What will life be like in a world in which we have the power as developmen-- ! tal biologist Stuart Newman puts it to turn “human beings into manufactured objects”? The new science that is raising these questions is called “germline engineering” What it means is designing our babies to our own spedfications ' We would choose the genes that determine human potential — height hair color intelligence longevity even many personality traits — instead of See GENES Brittany vomited for two days She couldn’t speak a complete sentence for three Since her overdose according to increasing apetite for prescription drugs and the corresponding Increase In the margin for error court records PORT RiCHEY Fla (AP) — Deborah Hoffman wanted to luiow why the nausea drug far her Brittany attends school with children with learning disabilities and for short spells can’t think clearly Prescription came with a special warning about giving it to children Even now three years later she d remembers the words of the woman behind the counter at Walgreens: It’s OK “because all children can use Compazine” That was disastrously bad advice Moreover the woman in the smock was a pharmacy technician — not a pharmacist She had no pharmacy degree and she didn’t notice that the bottle contained an adult dosage — 10 times what the doctor had prescribed The next morning Ms Hoffman found her daughter “all crumpled up” unable to move or talk Little white-coate- “I’ll ask for an fix Crf5 ash tray she’ll ERROlTw Sve me the phone” Ms Hoffman said Increasingly the person greeting Americans ffom behind the drugstore counter is a pharmacy technician In most states the job usually requires no license or training Fear $6 to $12 an hour these assistants shoulder much of the pharmacist’s job Druggists who earn $30 to $35 an hour are then free to doublecheck their dispensing work and counsel customers That low-cohelp is a mixed blessing: Technicians lack the phar st Press Remaking Eden by Lee M Silver 1997 Avon Books Web site of the Program on Medi cine Technology and Society at UCLA School of Medicine: htlpyAesearchmedneLuckLedupmt8G ermlineidefaulLhtm on Pfege 20 Pharmacies Edltor’a note: This is thethird in a three-pa- rt part series about America's Sources of Information about human germfine engineering include: Engineering the Human Germline edited by Gregory Stock and John Campbell 2000 Oxford University using macist's expertise face little regulation and sometimes — amid the crush of the nation’s increasingly busy pharmacies — dispense drugs with little oversight from pharmacists Techs as they’re known inside the pharmacy have helped the nation’s drugstores to flourish despite shrinking profit margins In most states they are allowed to call the doctor to authorize prescription refills to pull drugs off stock shelves to put pills into prescription bottles to enter prescriptions into die computer to type labels and to ring up sales In 37 states and the District of Columbia they can also mix drags from raw chemicals Pharmacists are responsible for supervising the technicians workdispensing drags checking for dangerous interactions with other drags and explaining how to take the medication To ensure that drugstores hire enough pharmacists to safely dispense drags most states limit the number of technicians each pharmacist can supervise Yet as technicians reach the legal limits of their tasks pharmacies are pressuring state regulators to expand those limits They are succeeding Since 1990 at least 10 states have increased the so-call-ed ratio: X'JhmAiIN I an Alabama Arkansas Colorado Florida Indi-an- a Kansas New Mexico North Dakota Oregon and Tennessee A 1998 study by the Virginia Board of Pharmacy found good reason for pharmacists to supervise technicians closely: Pharmacists were catching an average of 6 12 technician mistakes a week The study questioned phannacists-in-charg- e at the state's 1590 drugstores and more than half answered Of the technician errors found in the See DRUGGISTS on Page 20 Features: Wednesday Focus: Utah mothers travel to Russia pharmacist-to-technici- 752-212- 1 |