Word: parkinson
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Died. Frances Parkinson Keyes, 84, Virginia-born gentlewoman, world traveler, associate editor of Good Housekeeping (1923-35), and author of more than 50 books; in New Orleans. Though she never won great critical acclaim, she developed a sizable following for her light, brightly told tales, most often about New Orleans and Southern plantation life, as in Dinner at Antoine's, Crescent Carnival and Steamboat Gothic...
...million or more Americans, most of them over 50, suffer from Parkinson's disease, once generally known as "shaking palsy." The mysterious nerve disorder causes tremors, muscle rigidity, involuntary movements, slurred speech and may eventually disable the victim. Until recently it was virtually untreatable. Last week the U.S. Food and Drug Administration cautiously approved L-dopa, the first drug shown to be effective in a majority of cases of Parkinsonism. As a result, L-dopa, although subject to unprecedented safeguards because of its undesirable side effects, now becomes available for general prescription...
...carefully calibrated, massive doses for weeks and months. Many of his patients made remarkable recoveries. Since then, 6,000 patients have taken L-dopa in tests at other medical centers, two-thirds of them with good results. As a result, Congressmen, prodded by physicians and officials of Parkinson's disease organizations, put tremendous pressure on the FDA to make L-dopa generally available. Commissioner Charles C. Edwards indicated that the FDA had yielded somewhat to that pressure "while bearing in mind our duty under the law to make certain to the best of our ability that the drug...
...first time in FDA history, manufacturers will be required to conduct long-term studies of the drug's effects." They will have to compile data on the reported effects of patients under treatment, and on the results of post-mortem examinations of those who die of Parkinson's disease. There is good reason for this caution. Nearly all patients treated with L-dopa suffer some side effects, among which loss of appetite, nausea and vomiting are considered minor. More serious are changes in blood pressure and the white-blood-cell system and, paradoxically, involuntary muscle movements...
MANAGEMENT HABITS: Executives could surely re-examine some time-hallowed rules, with a view to eliminating make-work and Parkinson's first law ("Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion"). Though the work week has been growing shorter on the production line, today's managers are working harder?or at least longer ?than those of any previous generation. Part of the problem is simply inept planning of time and operations (see box, page 78). Most executives should be allowed to set their own working hours instead of meeting fixed schedules, which often make...