Majority Of Letters Research Articles

The “Aum Incident” as a Catalyst for Societal Critique: An Analysis of Letters to the Editor of Asahi Shinbun on Aum Shinrikyō

Abstract This article analyses the discussion of Aum Shinrikyō in letters to the editor of one of the major Japanese newspapers, Asahi Shinbun, through the method of qualitative content analysis. The examination focuses on two aspects of the letters in order to uncover how Aum is understood and localised in a bigger context: first, how Aum itself is discussed, and second, what topics are brought up in relation to the group. The analysis reveals that Aum was rarely referred to as a cult or a false religion, but more often merely as a religion, which is subsequently associated with negative notions. The majority of letters, however, did not specify the nature of Aum at all. This is congruent with the topics covered in the letters, since the content of a large portion of them is not concerned with Aum directly but with a more abstract critique of society and authorities. Letters to the editor of Asahi Shinbun for a large part do not make use of sensationalist wording, all the while expressing a critical stance towards the movement, and additionally they focus on a critique of the dealings with Aum prior to and after the subway attack in 1995.

Health Claims About Cannabidiol Products: A Retrospective Analysis of U.S. Food and Drug Administration Warning Letters from 2015 to 2019.

Background: Cannabidiol (CBD) products are increasingly available to consumers in the United States and are subject to regulation by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). CBD products cannot be marketed as unapproved new drugs with claims of therapeutic benefit. In addition, because CBD is the active ingredient in a FDA-approved CBD product, Epidiolex, CBD cannot be marketed as, or in, food products or dietary supplements. The FDA has issued Warning Letters to promote voluntary regulatory compliance. These letters provide insights as to the types of violations for CBD products detected in the U.S. market. Objective: The goal of this retrospective study was to content analyze Warning Letters issued by the FDA to identify illicit marketing of CBD products. Design: Warning Letters issued by the FDA between 2015 and 2019 were content analyzed using a deductive approach. We extracted year of issuance, issuing office, and claim types that are currently prohibited by the FDA, including (i) unapproved new drug, (ii) misbranded drug, (iii) false and/or misleading, (iv) FDA-approved/endorsed, (v) dietary supplement, and (vi) adulterated food product. In addition, we documented the disease or conditions the product claimed to affect, pharmacological effects, and location of violation. Results: Of the 39 Warning Letters issued, 97% were for violations made on company websites and 56% were for social media accounts. Almost all letters (97%) cited violations of marketing CBD as an unapproved new drug. These illicit therapeutic claims were made for >125 unique health problems, including cancer (87.2%), diabetes (71.8%), inflammation (66.7%), pain (66.7%), and arthritis (66.7%). The majority of letters (79.5%) also cited illicit marketing of CBD as a dietary supplement or food product. CBD was promoted as having 16 unique pharmacological effects, including anti-inflammatory (53.8%), anticancer (43.6%), and antipsychotic (30.8%). Conclusions: CBD products have been unlawfully advertised online as unauthorized drugs with health claims that promote therapeutic benefits and as dietary supplements. Efforts are needed to regulate and monitor illicit advertising so consumers are not misled about the risks and benefits of CBD use.

How Billionaires Explain Their Philanthropy: A Mixed-Method Analysis of the Giving Pledge Letters

This study investigates a discourse about billionaire philanthropy established in letters submitted by 187 of 209 signatories of the Giving Pledge. The philanthropy of the wealthy is gaining increasing public attention and is subject to growing criticism, which demands additional study of how the wealthy collectively explain their generosity. The mixed-method analysis finds a strong emphasis on education and health causes and identifies two distinct and coherent rationales for being generous. The majority of letters express a social–normative rationale, consisting of two prevailing explanations: an expressed gratitude and desire to “give back” (1) and references to family upbringing as a socializing force (2). A minority of letters articulate a personal–consequentialist rationale, highlighting three separate explanations: a large inheritance may harm offspring (1), giving as personal gratification (2), and an acknowledgment of excess wealth with no better use (3). An expressed desire to have impact and make a difference appears in both rationales. The overall dominance of a social–normative rationale projects a discourse emphasizing benevolence as well as a narrative in which billionaires are an exceptionally productive and grateful subset of society. While previous studies have primarily focused on identifying individual psychological motives, this study shows how the Giving Pledge letters reflect a philanthropic discourse among the wealthy going back to Andrew Carnegie’s Gospel of Wealth.

Drug Advertising Violations: A Longitudinal Trend Analysis of FDA Enforcement Letters from 2005 to 2019

In the United States, all pharmaceutical promotional activities must comply with regulatory standards set by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA); failure to comply may lead to receiving an FDA enforcement letter. Letters include details of the specific advertisement in violation, as well as the action that is required by the company to rectify the non-compliant promotion. The aim of this study was to determine trends in enforcement letters from the FDA to parties responsible for pharmaceutical promotion violations from 2005 to 2019. A longitudinal trend analysis was conducted of FDA enforcement letters sent to pharmaceutical companies from 2005 to 2019 (n=318). Publicly available enforcement letters released by the Office of Prescription Drug Promotion were accessed and analysed online through the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, a part of the FDA. Variables analysed included number of letters by year, violation categories, venues, intended audience, drug age and company revenues. Publicly available revenue was the major source for company revenue information. The total number of enforcement letters significantly decreased over time. Violations concerning risk information were significantly more prevalent than all other violation categories. Online promotional materials were most frequently cited. Proportionally, larger companies received the majority of letters in earlier years of observation, and smaller companies in later years (2013-2019). These trends are of value for industry and regulators alike in refining policy to ensure fair, balanced and meaningful information in pharmaceutical promotion. The frequency of violation letters has decreased in recent years; however, smaller companies have increasingly received the majority of letters. Small firms must increase their compliance around informing drug risk potential with balanced safety information across all promotional venues. Specifically, these findings are useful for pharmaceutical companies to direct educational efforts to promotional staff and their advertising agencies, especially regarding online advertising.

A narrative analysis positioning HIV relative to personal (sexual) relationship challenges in an agony aunt column in the Western Cape, South Africa – Aunty Mona’s “love advice”

ABSTRACTHIV prevalence and incidence in South Africa remain high, making HIV a part of everyday life. Community narratives on HIV treatment and prevention are important and influence official and unofficial health messaging and community perceptions and understandings of HIV. We explore how contributors and the columnist of an agony aunt column position HIV relative to choices made about love, partnership, and sex over three years. We analysed all columns of an agony aunt series (Antie Mona) published between December 2012 and November 2015. The column is published in a South African, Afrikaans-language newspaper “Son”, prioritising sensationalist news items. Trends were identified through narrative analysis. Data were managed in ATLAS.ti and inductive, iterative coding conducted. It was found that letters to the agony aunt rarely refer to HIV directly (less than 7%). Euphemisms such as diseases of the flesh and the great flu were more commonly used instead of HIV or AIDS. Letters addressed HIV in three ways: direct references to experiences living with HIV; direct questions about HIV prevention; and scenarios where HIV could (from a public health perspective) have been the main concern, but everyday issues took precedence. The majority of letters fell into this latter category where the writers focused on the immediate concerns of good sexual relations, problems related to love and romantic relationships, good moral behaviour of others, and issues of oppressive life conditions rather than on HIV directly. The findings illustrate that informal, public contributions to health information, such as agony aunts, are important narratives that inform popular perspectives on HIV and health. A better appreciation of this context would allow health implementers to ensure that these role players receive updated health messaging to avoid the risk of HIV-related stigma where HIV is used as a moral rod to punish perceived moral transgressions.

Settler colonialism and migrant letters: the Forbes family and letter-writing in South Africa 1850–1922

The ‘migrant letter’ has been proposed as a separate genre of letter-writing around features concerning absence, identity and relationships and location. However, questions arise about this claim, made using largely North American material. Explored in a different context, important complexities and differences come into view. This is discussed regarding the settler colonial context of South Africa using data from the Forbes family collection, containing around 15,000 documents written between 1850 and 1922. The Forbes were Byrne migrants to Natal, then Transvaal. The majority of letters in the collection were written and exchanged within South Africa, with significant numbers from family members remaining in Scotland or who removed elsewhere, and many drafts and copies of letters written by the South African end exist too. The size and composition of contents enable migrant letters to be explored within the greater entirety of the family’s letter-writing, conceived as a scriptural economy with characteristic writing practices. This is examined by looking in detail at the writing practices of a range of letter-writers and their correspondences. Important differences concerning how absences, identities and relationships and locations are inscribed in the context of South Africa are explored and traced to features of its settler colonial mode of production.

A fairy tale dictator: children's letters to the Duce

One of the aspects of the formation of consensus under the Fascist state concerns the construction of the Fascist ‘man’. This article takes up this notion and explores it in relation to children. The first part deal with the legislative process according to which Fascist rituals and myths were introduced into the school curriculum. The second part examines the letters that were sent to the Duce by children during the period of the regime. The majority of letters appear to have been dictated by elementary school teachers according to precise directives, but nonetheless there is some evidence of the spontaneous manifestation of the feelings of infants. The most significant aspect concerns the transfiguration of the Duce himself into a figure of fable in ways that could not but impact on the imagination of those who were born and raised between the 1920s and later 1930s.

Listy z Ziemi Wałeckiej i Krajny do końca XVIII w. z zasobu Archiwum Państwowego w Toruniu

This article tries to familiarise the correspondence from Wałcz region and Krajna to Toruń magistrate on the basis of letters stored in the holding of State Archives in Toruń. 75 catalogue descriptions of letters from 12 towns located in the north-western territories next to the borders of pre-partition Republic of Poland were presented. One cannot exclude that there are more of them in Toruń Archives, but only two sections chosen from so called Catalogue II (Acts of Toruń) and Catalogue III (Craftsman letters) were submitted in the query.Chronological borders of the correspondence presented are from 1402 to 1799; however, majority of the correspondence come from the XVIII century. The authors are both private persons and institutions (craftsman associations, city councils, evangelical commune council). Among craftsmen and city council letters one can find so called birth certificates (Geburtsbrief ), job certificates (Lehrbrief ) and ecommending letters (Empfehlungsbrief ). Court letters concern cases similar to contemporary ones: inheritance issues, suits for vendor cheating, legal proceeding in case of murders and others. Private persons ask the city council of Toruń to help them execute debts from Toruń inhabitants. Evangelical commune from Łobżenica asks a few times for financial help.Material gathered in the article constitutes the excellent source for research on chancery’s functioning at that time, both when it comes to senders and recipients of letters.One can see some regularity in the forms of some typical documents – just like crafts man letters mentioned above – independently of the town they were issued. After the first partition of Poland (1772), when the territories under discussion were taken over by Prussia, there appeared even printed forms of certificates of craftsmen training. Court correspondence was ad hoc in nature, where only polite forms of address were repeated. Later, letter content was described and the recipient noted down the date of their receipt. Only a few craftsman letters were written on the parchment paper, rest of them were paper. Thanks to that, one can find water marks next to common samples; there are also watermarks hardly ever met in the subject literature. With majority of letters there are seals of senders, among others hanging wax seals, shellac seals, paper-shellac seals and wafer seals. The correspondence was mainly in German language due to the neighbourhood of Brandenburg and later – Prussia. Latin and Polish languages were used as well. The condition of letters varies a lot – from excellent to poor. Letters of Catalogue III are currently stored separately while the letters of Catalogue II are stored in sewn files.

Understanding what Christmas gifts mean to children

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to understand what Christmas gifts mean to children by examining the features and styles of the letters that children write to Santa Claus.Design/methodology/approachContents and style of 314 authentic letters sent by UK children to Santa Claus were analyzed using an underlying interpretive consumer research approach.FindingsLetters to Santa contain expressions of needs, wants, desires, hopes and dreams related to Christmas. The majority of letters were identified as expressions of wants and desires, while only a few letters contained features of needs or dreaming. This implies that for children Christmas seems to be a rather unspiritual festival concerning having things rather than dreams coming true.Research limitations/implicationsThe generalization of findings is limited to Western welfare societies. Letters are not originally written for research purposes, and therefore lack background information about the writers and their writing situations.Practical implicationsAnalysis of letters to Santa offers an opportunity to identify the spirit of postmodern consumption with its contradictory aspects, and understand children as consumers. It is essential to recognize and understand the nature of the desires of today's children as they are an influential set of consumers.Originality/valueThe paper offers insights about the contemporary Christmas gift giving from the point of view of children. Contrary to previous studies, the central focus of the analysis is on gift request styles and letters as meaningful entities, not just on product categories or brands as such.

Hospitals do not inform GPs about medication that should be monitored.

General practitioners are now asked to prescribe drugs that, due to possible risks and side effects, had previously been prescribed almost exclusively at hospital. To assess the quality of hospital letters as the key communication between hospitals and GPs. Hospital letters examined using a predetermined protocol. Of 224 patients identified who were taking drugs that required regular monitoring, 173 were commenced in hospital. Fewer than one in five (30; 17%) hospital letters indicated that there was a risk associated with the drug or that it should be routinely monitored. Monitoring frequency was identified on only 14 occasions and the majority of letters (129; 74. 6%) did not state who was to be responsible for ongoing monitoring (either GP or hospital). Information was slow to arrive at the practice and, in 12% of cases, the hospital letter had not arrived within 14 days of commencement of medication. The information provided in hospital letters is insufficient to allow GPs to put structures in place to monitor drug therapy.

L'Affaire Curie

The Bulletin has received letters from many of its readers commenting on the Curie incident. The majority of letters registered approval for the position of the Bulletin as expressed in its editorial (March 1954). Discussion of the episode has also appeared in other publications, primarily the Chemical & Engineering News, official journal of the ACS. The following two editorials and letters are representative of the conflicting points of view that have resulted from the action of the American Chemical Society when it rejected Mme. Joliot-Curie's application for membership.