Suchergebnisse

While Prozac initially came to be termed the 'wonder-drug' for adults suffering from depression, the trend inevitably spread to the treatment of the pediatric population – that is, to children and adolescents aged 8 to 17 years. In 2003, however, America's main drug regulator – the Food and Drug Authority (FDA) – was the first to approve Prozac for this age group. But reports of the scientific community followed soon, claiming that patients under the age of 18 should not be given antidepressants. There had been disturbing evidence that Prozac's risks outweighed its benefits and that it led to severe adverse effects, most notably aggressive and suicidal behavior. Unfortunately, their voice was only partly heard: later that same year, the British Medicine and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) issued a ban on new-generation antidepressants for the treatment of the pediatric population. But while it excluded Prozac from the ban, the European Medicine Agency (EMA) thought differently: it did not only decide to join the bandwagon of prohibiting the prescription of antidepressants for children two years later, but to extend the ban to Prozac as well. Eventually, the decisions by different European drug regulators – and their clashes with the American FDA – unleashed a heated debate about secretive proceedings in the health sector that affected the industry, its regulators, the scientific community, and the patient population. Only three years later, in 2006, the EMA suddenly approved Prozac for the treatment of children and adolescents under the condition that further clinical research was done – notwithstanding previous skepticism. And the debate continues until today. As such, it illustrates the thin line between economic benefit, consumer protection, and scientific progress, together with its mediating factor: disclosure of information or transparency. Furthermore, the case-study mentioned above serves well to highlight the shallow proceedings in the pharmaceutical industry, which, to date, remain corrupt and secretive.

Research in a few U.S. states has shown that candidates listed first on ballots gain extra votes as a result. This study explored name order effects for the first time in New Hampshire, where such effects might be weak or entirely absent because of high political engagement and the use of party column ballots. In general elections (in 2012 and 2016) for federal offices and the governorship and in primaries (in 2000, 2002, and 2004), evidence of primacy effects appeared in 86% of the 84 tests, including the 2016 presidential race, when Donald Trump gained 1.7 percentage points from first listing, and Hillary Clinton gained 1.5 percentage points. Consistent with theoretical predictions, primacy effects were larger in primaries and for major-party candidates in general elections than for non-major-party candidates in general elections, more pronounced in less publicized contests, and stronger in contests without an incumbent running. All of this constitutes evidence of the reliability and generalizability of evidence on candidate name order effects and their moderators.

The concept of transparency can be applied to nearly every domain of human activity. In each of these diverse domains transparency is thought to provide the public with information in order to make reasoned judgements: be it information about who to vote for, who to employ, which medications to take, or which Non Governmental Organization to support. If people are sufficiently informed, the argument goes, they are able to hold political officials accountable, find more competent staff, and even punish mismanagement and corruption. As Bessire (2005) puts it, "transparency is strongly related to information – and information is power" (p. 429). This line of reasoning ignores the fact that the availability of information is not the only aspect of accountability. If the public does not know what is happening behind closed doors, it naturally has no incentive – and indeed no chance – to hold somebody accountable necessary. As well as having access to relevant information, people must have measures at their disposal to punish responsible actors.

If you search for ´transparency´ on an internet search engine, it will provide more than 87 million hits to choose from. By clicking through the results, a diverse variety of types of transparency can be found, ranging from governmental or state transparency to transparency in the financial sector to transparency in sports. While some hits provide state or corporate policies on transparency, others refer to organizations that push for increased openness of organizations. Transparency is a concept that can be applied to a broad variety of different situations and domains in our social, political and economic world, often making it difficult to grasp clearly defined conditions. Since transparency seemingly illustrates a concept with unparalleled possibilities of application, it was referred to as a ´buzzword´ throughout this volume. The contributions of this volume sought, however, to give more substance to the 'buzzword'. In which fields of social life do matters of transparency come up? What specific role does it play? Do we understand it in an instrumental or consequential way? Who or what is at the focal point of transparency – individuals, public persons, institutions or professions? The answers to these questions, which seek to define the characteristics and criteria of transparency, and the expectations attached to the concept will differ from case to case. What is needed, therefore, is further refinement of what is actually meant when speaking about transparency. Such refinement is inevitably context-based. This is exactly what this volume aimed to do: it analyzes the concept of transparency within specific cases and attempts to show what implications it can have for individuals, politics, social media, international development aid and the pharmaceutical industry. In this regard, the approaches of our authors followed the rationale that transparency is not to be understood as a value in itself, but as instrumental in achieving specific objectives.