Children of the silent majority: Nixon, new politics and the youth vote, 1968-1972

"Children of the Silent Majority: Nixon, New Politics, and the Youth Vote, 1968-1972" investigates the emergence of young Americans as a major force in national politics, arguing that the 1968 generation constrained the conservative realignment that Richard Nixon envisioned but also revitalized the Republican Party after the voting age fell to eighteen. Despite the widespread assumption that the vast cadre of young voters casting ballots for the first time in 1972 would tilt the electorate to the Democratic Party, this dissertation reveals that the Nixon administration targeted and mobilized young Americans not aligned with the left--people Nixon's staff called the "sons and daughters of the silent majority." Nixon cultivated his own youth cadre, Young Voters for the President (YVP). Carefully targeting non-students and campus conservatives to join this 400,000 member organization, YVP leaders employed both grassroots organization and modern Madison Avenue advertising techniques to pry increasingly independent young voters from previous Democratic strongholds such as urban, ethnic enclaves and the Sunbelt. In addition, when the politics of youth--the ways Americans, young and old, thought about young people and youth issues--presented a barrier to Nixon's law-and-order conservative policies on problems such as marijuana and campus disorders, Nixon acquiesced on issues such as the draft and environmental protection. This youth-friendly approach allowed his administration to attract and recruit young voters. This study also explores how youth politics fueled the development of image politics during the1970s, compelling campaigns to embrace new techniques that emphasized targeted polling, television and candidates' personal characteristics over party loyalty. Attracting young voters necessitated a more image savvy campaign, giving Nixon's in-house advertising agency of high-powered executives, the November Group, a central role in campaign strategy. Young voters also supplied the campaign with public relations opportunities to counter Nixon's detractors in the media who relished his "youth problem." This study contributes to the scholarship on the Nixon presidency and the political history of the Republican "New Majority" in the 1960s and 1970s by uncovering the decisive role of young voters and youth issues in those pivotal years

Characteristics and Impact of Drug Detailing for Gabapentin

BACKGROUND: Sales visits by pharmaceutical representatives (“drug detailing”) are common, but little is known about the content of these visits or about the impact of visit characteristics on prescribing behavior. In this study, we evaluated the content and impact of detail visits for gabapentin by analyzing market research forms completed by physicians after receiving a detail visit for this drug. METHODS AND FINDINGS: Market research forms that describe detail visits for gabapentin became available through litigation that alleged that gabapentin was promoted for “off-label” uses. Forms were available for 97 physicians reporting on 116 detail visits between 1995 and 1999. Three-quarters of recorded visits (91/116) occurred in 1996. Two-thirds of visits (72/107) were 5 minutes or less in duration, 65% (73/113) were rated of high informational value, and 39% (42/107) were accompanied by the delivery or promise of samples. During the period of this study, gabapentin was approved by the US Food and Drug Administration only for the adjunctive treatment of partial seizures, but in 38% of visits (44/115) the “main message” of the visit involved at least one off-label use. After receiving the detail visit, 46% (50/108) of physicians reported the intention to increase their prescribing or recommending of gabapentin in the future. In multivariable analysis, intent to increase future use or recommendation of gabapentin was associated with receiving the detail in a small group (versus one-on-one) setting and with low or absent baseline use of the drug, but not with other factors such as visit duration, discussion of “on-label” versus “off-label” content, and the perceived informational value of the presentation. CONCLUSIONS: Detail visits for gabapentin were of high perceived informational value and often involved messages about unapproved uses. Despite their short duration, detail visits were frequently followed by physician intentions to increase their future recommending or prescribing of the drug

Relationship of the triglyceride to high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (TG/HDL-C) ratio to the remainder of the lipid profile: The Very Large Database of Lipids-4 (VLDL-4) study

Background: High levels of the triglycerides to high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (TG/HDL-C) ratio are associated with obesity, metabolic syndrome, and insulin resistance.Objectives: We evaluated variability in the remaining lipid profile, especially remnant lipoprotein particle cholesterol (RLP-C) and its components (very low-density lipoprotein cholesterol subfraction 3 and intermediate-density lipoprotein cholesterol), with variability in the TG/HDL-C ratio in a very large study cohort representative of the general U.S.Methods: We examined data from 1,350,908 US individuals who were clinically referred for lipoprotein cholesterol ultracentrifugation (Atherotech, Birmingham, AL) from 2009 to 2011. Demographic information other than age and sex was not available. Changes to the remaining lipid profile across percentiles of the TG/HDL-C ratio were quantified, as well as by three TG/HDL-C cut-off points previously proposed in the literature: 2.5 (male) and 2 (female), 3.75 (male) and 3 (female), and 3.5 (male and female).Results: The mean age of our study population was 58.7 years, and 48% were men. The median TG/HDL-C ratio was 2.2. Across increasing TG/HDL-C ratios, we found steadily increasing levels of RLP-C, non-HDL-C and LDL density. Among the lipid parameters studied, RLP-C and LDL density had the highest relative increase when comparing individuals with elevated TG/HDL-C levels to those with lower TG/HDL-C levels using established cut-off points. Approximately 47% of TG/HDL-C ratio variance was attributable to RLP-C.Conclusions: In the present analysis, a higher TG/HDL-C ratio was associated with an increasingly atherogenic lipid phenotype, characterized by higher RLP-C along with higher non-HDL-C and LDL density