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Ian Roberts, professor of epidemiology and Public Health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, has created a manga devoted towards raising public awareness about various medical-related diseases.
Originally I thought it might look like one of those illustrated pamphlets you pick up while you’re waiting to get a physical, but it’s a little cooler — think a manga adaptation of ER, containing fictional scenarios of heavily-bleeding trauma patients getting the medical attention they need from the drug.
The New York Times reports that this is part of Roberts’ campaign to bring awareness to a clot-boosting pharmaceutical drug known as Tranexamic Acid.
Despite his study published in different medical journals — proving that the drug reduced the death rate by up to 30%, as well as reduced minor bleeding — no pharmaceutical company has been willing to pony up the money thus far for the media campaign.
Roberts, not surprised by a pharmaceutical company’s lack of willingness to give him money, was prepared to utilize what resources he could to get the money together. For instance, he’s also having his nephew create a claymation PSA to help bring awareness to the drug.
“I have prepared a manga comic that contains the main research findings,” said Roberts in the Times interview, “but in the context of an exciting emergency department drama (romance is included).”
According to the study published by Roberts, the study was conducted amongst 20,000 trauma patients in 40 countries, including military civilian hospitals in Afghanistan. Seems like a slam dunk; guess Pfizer or Johnson & Johnson want some more definitive studies published. Hopefully this creative and clever idea helps move the campaign along. If it’s as dramatic as the picture suggests, so much the better…

Jeff Nau – who has written 1264 posts on The Jace Hall Show.
Jeff Nau is a main contributor to the Jace Hall Show covering pop culture and music trends in the nerd community. He has contributed to San Diego City Beat, 944, and Ill Literature, amongst others, and spends his spare time working as an artist and photographer.

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