WSU to Study Iraq Toxins' Effect
Spokesman-Review
by Bert Caldwell
Research to examine how exposure might damage offspring of soldiers
Washington State University scientists will use a $1.7 million grant to study what multi-generation genetic damage might be done by toxins U.S. troops could encounter in Iraq.
The research using laboratory rats, not humans, will be the first for the military to examine the epigenetic effects of pesticides, herbicides and other compounds, said lead scientist Michael Skinner, director of the university's Center for Reproductive Biology.
Previous studies have looked at the health effects of other substances, notably the Agent Orange used to defoliate jungles in Vietnam, on the soldiers directly exposed, he said, not on their children or grandchildren.
"The science really had not caught up with the trans-generational stuff," said Skinner, one of several WSU pioneers in the field of epigenetic, or multi-generational, inheritance.
Besides herbicides and pesticides – which and in what combinations has not been determined – the study also will look at the effects of explosives residues, he said.
The four-year study will allow researchers to see how any changes in genetic chemistry that develop are passed along through two subsequent generations of rats, he said, noting that only the first two years of research have been funded.
Among the problems that might develop are kidney disease, or changes in the male and female reproductive organs, he said.
If any genetic markers are identified in rats, Skinner said, follow-up research could look at whether they might show up among members of the military as well.
That would be of particular interest to Dave Holmes, interim chief operating officer of the Institute for Systems Medicine, which was awarded the U.S. Department of Defense grant passed through to Skinner.
Holmes' son, Tim Hammond, did two tours in Iraq with the U.S. Marine Corps.
"They sprayed all kinds of stuff on them," Holmes said.
Although the grant money, the first awarded ISM, will fund work in Pullman, he said the organization's supporters hope any subsequent clinical studies will be done in Spokane.
"There's a lot of excitement about making it happen," he said.
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AstraZeneca’s Seroquel Caused Diabetes, Lawyer Says (Update2)
March 16 (Bloomberg) -- AstraZeneca Plc’s antipsychotic drug Seroquel helped cause a Vietnam veteran to develop diabetes, a lawyer for the man argued in the first case to go to trial over the medicine.
Researchers for AstraZeneca, the U.K.’s second-largest drugmaker, acknowledged as early as 2000 that Seroquel could affect users’ blood-sugar levels and lead to significant weight gain, attorney Jerry Kristal told jurors today in state court in New Brunswick, New Jersey.
“Their own top scientists have said there’s an association between Seroquel and diabetes,” Kristal said in closing arguments in Ted Baker’s case against AstraZeneca. Jurors may begin deliberating tomorrow.
Baker’s lawsuit is the first of about 26,000 over Seroquel to go to trial. Lawyers for Baker and other former Seroquel users contend London-based AstraZeneca mishandled the drug, ignoring or downplaying its links to diabetes and weight gain to protect sales.
AstraZeneca’s lawyers countered in their argument that studies found Seroquel doesn’t cause diabetes and Baker’s disease stemmed from his lifestyle and diet. Seroquel, with sales of $4.9 billion last year, is AstraZeneca’s second-biggest seller after the ulcer treatment Nexium.
“He was already on the way to diabetes before he started taking Seroquel,” Diane Sullivan, one of the company’s lawyers, told jurors today. “Type 2 diabetes is really, really common,” Sullivan added later. “People with Mr. Baker’s risk factors get diabetes every day.”
Workforce Reductions
AstraZeneca officials said this month that they will end research and development into psychiatric medications at the company’s U.S. headquarters in Wilmington, Delaware, as part of a companywide reorganization.
The drugmaker’s executives plan to eliminate 11 percent of AstraZeneca’s workforce by the end of this year as part of a restructuring that will cost $2 billion through 2013. The cuts would include 550 jobs in Wilmington.
AstraZeneca’s American depositary receipts, each representing one ordinary share, rose 8 cents to $44.39 at 4 p.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. The shares fell 6.5 pence to 2,911 pence in London today.
Baker, a Vietnam veteran who contends he was taking Seroquel to deal with lingering effects of post-traumatic stress syndrome tied to his military service, is among thousands of people with claims pending in state court in New Jersey alleging that AstraZeneca misled U.S. consumers about the drug’s health risks.
Weight-Gain Documents
Earlier this month, a U.K. regulatory panel ruled that AstraZeneca didn’t accurately describe Seroquel’s side effects in an 2004 advertisement to doctors. The company declined to appeal that finding.
Baker’s lawyers argued that evidence in the case showed AstraZeneca executives resisted researchers’ calls to toughen the descriptions of side effects in Seroquel safety documents to protect sales.
When scientists pushed to have the word “limited” removed from Seroquel’s weight-gain description in internal documents, AstraZeneca’s marketers balked, Kristal said.
Documents show executives complained the alteration “is potentially damaging to Seroquel,” Kristal said. “That doesn’t sound like AstraZeneca is putting patient safety first.”
Financial considerations also prompted company officials to downplay Seroquel’s diabetes risks in reports to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration while warning each other about those risks in internal documents, Kristal said.
‘Negative Information’
AstraZeneca officials “didn’t want to share negative information about their drug” with regulators because “it affects sales,” he said.
Sullivan said in her closing argument that Baker had been suicidal and clinically depressed when he started taking Seroquel in 2000 at the behest of doctors at a Veterans Administration Hospital in Louisiana. Doctors saw immediate improvement, the AstraZeneca lawyer said.
“The truth is that Seroquel saved Mr. Baker’s life,” Sullivan said. “And what does AZ get for that? It gets hauled into this courtroom and accused of the worst kind of things.”
Sullivan urged jurors to “use your common sense” and reject Baker’s attempt to blame AstraZeneca for his medical condition.
“It’s human nature that when something bad happens, we try to find a villain, someone to blame,” she said.
The case is Baker v. AstraZeneca Pharmaceuticals LP, MID L 1099 07 MT, Superior Court of New Jersey, Law Division, Middlesex County (New Brunswick).
To contact the reporters on this story: Jef Feeley in Wilmington, Delaware, at jfeeley@bloomberg.net; Margaret Cronin Fisk in Southfield, Michigan, at mcfisk@bloomberg.net.
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