From Brian Kenney, Senior Director, Corporate Communications, Centocor Ortho Biotech Inc.

Today’s blogosphere provides vivid personal accounts about the realities of what it is like to live with a chronic condition like rheumatoid arthritis (RA). There exists a very active community of RA bloggers (such as All Flared Up, The Single Gal’s Guide to Rheumatoid Arthritis, Rheumatoid Arthritis Guy, and Rheumatoid Arthritis Warrior) who share perspectives and questions about many related topics.

Listening to the perspectives of this social community has helped us to understand more about how RA can affect a person’s quality of life. For example, everyday activities that most of us take for granted – participating in family or work activities, spending time with friends, dating, exercising – can be daunting when someone must contend with stiff, swollen and painful joints routinely, and untimely flares of such symptoms.

There is a new online talk show, New Way RA™, that focuses exclusively on addressing topics of overall health and well-being for people living with RA. The show provides expert advice and practical information through an engaging and accessible web-based format. Visitors to the site can view the entire show online, listen to real-life anecdotes from people living with RA, register to receive a free copy of the DVD, and access resources for more information. (Full disclosure: the project is sponsored by Centocor Ortho Biotech Inc).

We hope that people living with RA, as well as their caregivers, find New Way RA helpful in answering some questions they may have about their overall well-being, and that this program will further raise awareness about a chronic disease that affects more than one million Americans, the majority of whom are women.

You can watch the show and learn more at http://www.newwayra.com/.

For more information about RA, check out CreakyJoints and the Arthritis Foundation.

From Mai Kristofferson, Corporate Communication

They say ‘an apple a day keeps the doctor away.’ Well, for many members of the nearby New Brunswick community, (where our world headquarters is located) fresh produce hasn’t always been readily available. That is, until Rutgers University and the city of New Brunswick teamed up to establish a bi-weekly farmer’s market with the help of a grant from Johnson & Johnson.

Opened recently, the market is all about encouraging healthy lifestyle choices in New Jersey inter-cities, especially for those of modest means. Not only can people who visit the market buy locally grown fruits and vegetables, but they can learn about nutrition counseling, cooking demonstrations, and food budgeting and safety practices as well.

When we heard about it, Marc, Rob and I packed up our bags (and a video camera) and headed over to check it out. You can learn more about this effort in this video we put together at the ribbon-cutting ceremony:

As I was sitting in the summer sun at the ribbon cutting ceremony, I was struck by just how important access to fresh fruits and vegetables can be to the health of an entire community. As Rutgers President Richard McCormick explained, many of us fill our diets with empty calories and unhealthy foods. Food choices which result in chronic health conditions are now all too familiar throughout society. Childhood obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular diseases are just a few with correlations to the absence of nutritious food. “These problems,” he said in his speech at the ceremony, “cheat ordinary people of productive and healthy lives.”

Unfortunately, for many communities, it often isn’t easy to gain access to fresh fruits and vegetables.

Though too many communities still lack access to farm-fresh foods, hopefully the recent trend to open more farmers markets in town centers and urban areas will ensure that everyone can get their one apple a day.

Thanks to this initiative, for our neighbors in New Brunswick, an apple a day is no longer far away.

By Frederik Wittock, Senior Director, Global Communications, Johnson & Johnson Pharmaceutical Services, L.L.C., Division of Janssen Pharmaceutica, N.V.

Each year, we honor the work of passionate and creative scientists who have made an impact on human health through the Dr. Paul Janssen Award for Biomedical Research. Dr. Paul Janssen, better known as Dr. Paul, founded Janssen Pharmaceutica, N.V. in 1953 (Janssen Pharmaceutica, N.V. joined the Johnson & Johnson Family of Companies in 1961). Dr. Paul was a gifted and dedicated physician and scientist who helped save millions of lives through his contribution to the discovery and development of more than 80 medicines.

This year’s award winner, Axel Ullrich, Ph.D., director of the Department of Molecular Biology at the Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry in Germany, certainly embodies the spirit of Dr. Paul. The work of Dr. Ullrich has helped to significantly improve the lives of those with chronic diseases, including diabetes and cancer. His discoveries have led to novel cancer therapies and genetically engineered human insulin, among others.

I had the opportunity to attend the award announcement in London during the 6^th annual World Conference of Science Journalists, of which Johnson & Johnson is a sponsor. This was the perfect venue to celebrate the achievements of Dr. Ullrich and the legacy of Dr. Paul. The conference brought together journalists, scientists, and communication professionals to discuss more effective ways of communicating the latest scientific advances, debates, and key issues. Dr. Ullrich was not only an award recipient but also a speaker at the conference, where he provided journalists with his perspective on how scientists and the media can better work together to improve the reporting of cancer breakthroughs.

I think Dr. Paul would be pleased to see scientists, journalists, and others in the health care industry working together to advance science with the common goal of improving the lives of patients.

Kick Start Farms

Nairobi, Kenya
 
With the goal of eliminating poverty, Kick Start develops low-cost agricultural and construction equipment for micro-entrepreneurs in Africa, allowing local farmers and craftsmen to develop profitable small-scale enterprises, creating jobs and promoting sustainable economic growth. Johnson & Johnson supports Kick Start’s work in Kenya.
 
The photographer, Willie Davis, captures the pensive look of a Kenyan woman who stands amidst the crop that would have been difficult, if not impossible, to grow without the use of Kick Start’s micro-irrigation technologies. These technologies provide the means for Kenyan farmers to develop very profitable small businesses. The close focus of Davis’ photograph creates a delicate image that contrasts the lush green trees with the woman’s face.

(Photographer: Willie Davis, a Johnson & Johnson – International Center of Photography Fellowship recipient)

From Pat Molino, Vice President, Public Affairs & Corporate Citizenship, Johnson & Johnson

How can doctors and patients know which therapies or procedures are the best ways to treat different medical conditions? Comparative effectiveness research, which compares therapeutic approaches, has been posited as a key way to get answers to these questions, and it’s become part of the ongoing health care reform debate in the U.S.

In an editorial in this morning’s Washington Post, Johnson & Johnson Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Bill Weldon shared his perspective on the topic. In his editorial, Bill said that when used properly, comparative effectiveness research – or CER — can help create a more efficient, quality-focused, and patient-centered health care system that maintains incentives for innovation and growth. Though recognizing that there are “many patient groups, physicians and developers of treatments” who are concerned that CER could be used to restrict access to a broad range of treatments, Bill explained that:

“…that doesn’t have to be what happens here. By carefully allotting the stimulus funding, the federal government can lay the groundwork for how a permanent institute devoted to comparing treatments could work.

Achieving this goal involves addressing the concerns of those who worry about the impact of this research on access to treatment. What’s needed is a public-private entity focused on improving the evidence for treating individual patients. The institute should have open, transparent processes and consider the input of patients, consumers, physicians and other providers. It should focus on clinical effectiveness, not cost effectiveness.”

Read the entire editorial here.