PROGRAM’S GOAL IS ACCURACY IN DRUG-ADDICTION REPORTING

by Brian Vastag

In 1987, Dr. David Friedman, then at the National Institute on Drug Abuse, told the Washington Post that “marijuana is most dangerous when a bale of it falls on your head.”

“That led to media training for everyone at NIDA,” recalled Friedman, who felt that the Post reporter misunderstood his comment regarding the acute effects of pot.

The episode, however, did not sour the director of NIDA’s neuroscience program on communicating to the public. He went on to lead NIDA’s science education program, write a book for the lay public, and after moving to Wake Forest University School of Medicine, co-founded an intensive two-day Addiction Studies Program for Journalists. The program now boasts 100 graduates and in June received a media award from the College on Problems of Drug Dependence, an interdisciplinary society that attracted 1,000 researchers to its annual meeting in Bal Harbour, FL.

At a plenary session, Friedman accepted the award with program co-director Sue Rusche, president and CEO of National Families in Action, a nonprofit that helps parents prevent childhood and adolescent addiction. From 1982 to 1989, Rusche wrote a syndicated, twice-weekly newspaper column on the subject.

They’re the perfect pair to run such a program: a scientist who believes in public communication and an advocate who knows how to communicate.

Rusche developed the idea after retiring from writing. As addiction continued to exact a brutal toll on society, she wanted to reach more people than her column allowed. She approached Emory University, in Atlanta, her hometown, but was rebuffed. Soon after, though, she found a kindred spirit in Friedman, who had close ties to NIDA. They received funding for their first round of seminars in 1999.

In accepting the media award, Rusche said, “We got tired of reading inaccuracies in the newspapers. But instead of bemoaning it, we got a little sympathy for reporters.”

That sympathy—empathy is probably a better word, given Rusche’s newspaper history—is apparent in Rusche’s warmth towards participants in the seminar, offered three times yearly in conjunction with a major addiction science meeting. Her empathy is also evident in the agenda, which provided a bounty of background and timely tips, too.

Invited experts covered the history, neurobiology, pharmacology, and genetics of addiction. And that was just day one.

The entertaining Kent Vrana, a professor of physiology and pharmacology at Wake Forest, launched the program with a talk on animal models of addiction. His presentation starred Rex, a rhesus monkey known for his sailor’s constitution. For the past three years, Vrana has been vainly trying to clone Rex as part of an effort to tease out environmental influences on addiction. Some 25 to 40 genes likely contribute to alcoholism, said Vrana, but scientists are just beginning to understand how these genes react to stress, diet, and other factors. A squad of hard-drinking macaques would have eased the job considerably, but for the time being, at least, Rex and his daily 12-pack habit remains unique.

After a break on the beach—the seminar was held at the deco Seaside Hotel, just north of Miami’s South Beach—Friedman covered the neurobiology of addiction. Shelly Schwartz-Bloom, a professor of pharmacology at Duke University Medical Center, filled in the cellular details with a video featuring flashing neurons.

Day two included a pair of high-profile treatment experts: Herbert Kleber, M.D., a psychiatrist at Columbia University; and Tom McClellan, Ph.D., director of the Treatment Research Institute at the University of Pennsylvania. They literally wrote the book on the subject, Principles of Drug Addiction Treatment: A Research Based Guide (available on the NIDA Web site).

McClellan pointed out that the natural history of and treatment strategies for addiction strongly resemble those of other chronic diseases, in particular diabetes, hypertension, and asthma. But while treatments for those conditions are evaluated during treatment, treatment for addiction is generally judged by counting how many patients remain sober a month, a year, a decade after treatment.

“With diabetes, when someone comes back without changing their behavior, doctors point their finger and blame and so on, and guess what?” said McClellan. “It doesn’t work.”

So, too, it goes with addiction. The difference is that with addiction the need for retreatment is seen as a failure—not only of the individual, but of the treatment as well, said McClellan. He is working hard to change that double standard.

An evening session featured former CNN anchor Susan Rook, who spent 90 minutes detailing her own struggles with addiction. The exuberant Rook breathed life into the facts, and she managed to keep everyone awake, even a jet-lagged reporter from Hawaii.

She was one of a score of reporters in attendance from outlets large and small. Thomas Howard, of the 3,000-circulation Georgetown (South Carolina) Times, wanted to better understand the “local drunks” who regularly appear in his reports. Vanessa Arrington, an AP correspondent in Bogota, Columbia, was curious about the fate of all those kilos of cocaine and heroin she writes about. Senior U.S. News & World Report writer Susan Brink felt the need to keep abreast of the latest science. Jeff Davis, from the Danville (Texas) Register & Bee, and Sam Skolnik, of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, needed schooling in the medical aspects of addiction to round out their cops-and-courts reporting. Colleen Marshall, of West Hawaii Today, came to interview sources about “ice” (methamphetamine), which after intense federal marijuana eradication has rapidly become the drug of choice for adolescents on her island.

The seminar concluded with an appearance by the new director of NIDA, Dr. Nora Volkow. She gave a 15-minute overview of her vision, which included a promise to “stick to the facts” when communicating addiction science.

The seminar over, a clutch of reporters trekked to the South Beach glam clubs. Others headed to the beach for some rejuvenating body surfing. A few of us staying for the CPDD meeting stayed behind with our mentors—scientists devoted to guiding us through the welter of sessions at the five-day meeting. It would all make a lot more sense now.

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Brian Vastag is the associate news editor for the Journal of the American Medical Association. Reports aided or inspired by the Addiction Studies Program for Journalists appear in the Aug. 13, Aug. 20, and Sept. 10, 2003, issues of JAMA. More information on the program is available at www.addictionstudies.org.