Thought You'd Be Interested

In a recent post I pointed out that current economic conditions are forcing a growing number of Americans to engage in unhealthy behavior, like skipping renewing prescriptions in order to save money. However, the leaders of the companies who produce the drugs many people can no longer afford won't have a similar problem. Here are the compensation numbers for the 10 best paid big pharma execs as compiled by fiercepharma.com:

1. Miles White - Abbott - $33.4M

2. Fred Hassan - Schering-Plough - $30.1M

3. Bill Weldon - Johnson & Johnson - $25.1M

4. Bob Essner - Wyeth - $24.1M

5. Robert Parkinson - Baxter - $17.6M

6. Daniel Vasella - Novartis - $15.5M

7. Richard Clark - Merck - $14.5M

8. Frank Baldino - Cephalon - $13.5M

9. Sidney Taurel - Eli Lilly - $13M

10. Jeff Kindler - Pfizer - $12.6M

Unhealthy Behavior With iPods Among Teens

A new study by Univ. of Colorado and Boston Children's Hospital highlights surprising behavior among teens when using their iPods. When teens are asked to turn down the volume of their iPods they instead increase the volume (which significantly increases their risk for hearing loss). The study also found that boys listen at higher volume than girls, and that teens listen at higher volume than young adults. The most surprising result of the study was that teens who were most concerned about the risk and severity of hearing loss from iPods actually play their music at higher levels than their peers. The researchers could not come up with an explanation for such behavior.