The names of chemotherapy drugs often contain sounds that could make patients think the drugs are less harsh than they are, Dartmouth linguistics professor Lewis Glinert, announced in his research paper "Chemotherapy as language: Sound symbolism in cancer medication names."
"In daily life, we are constantly bombarded by very carefully orchestrated sound effects," Glinert said. "We want doctors and patients to be aware of this, and while the people regulating our drugs in the FDA do not generally concern themselves with the more subtle sound effects that we are talking about, we think they should be aware of it too."
Glinert and his colleague Gregory Abel '91, a researcher at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, published their paper in the online edition of Social Science and Medicine on Feb. 4, 2008. Glinert was inspired to write the paper when Abel approached him with the hypothesis that drug companies give chemotherapy drugs names that make them sound less intense.
"There is very little awareness in the medical world about how much language affects health outcomes," Glinert said. "One day maybe medical schools will offer serious communications skills to doctors, but that's a subject that is still in its infancy."
According to Glinert, the high incidence of "harder" sounds and low frequency of others suggest to patients that these very long and arduous drugs may act quickly and painlessly. For example, he found the soft "g" sound to be very uncommon among drug names, while harder sounds such as "k," "p," and "t" appear more frequently.
"As opposed to the "g" sound, the vocal chords are not vibrating with the harder, 'voiceless' sounds such as "k," Glinert said. "We hypothesize that the "g" sound suggests slowness or heaviness."
Glinert said he believes patients develop a bond with the name of these drugs much like a person maintains a special connection to the name of a loved one. He said he hopes to design an experiment to observe real patient responses to sounds in drug names, although such an experiment would be difficult to implement due to patients previous associations with certain words.
"Classic research must take nonsense words because of this," Glinert said. "You might take students who have never heard of a particular condition or drug -- one could prove something there."
It is well known that many companies pay consultants to devise appealing names for their products, according to Glinert. For instance, the marketable qualities of the letter "z" are commonly known in the automobile and electronic industries because studies have shown the sound and appearance of "z" suggests something streamlined or modern. However, he said his study is the first public attempt to show how linguistic strategies could apply to drug names.
Both Glinert and Abel are also studying the effects of drug commercials, and how pharmeceutical companies present the side effects and instructions on television. Glinert is also collaborating with Steven Woloshin and Lisa Schwartz, assistant professors of medicine at Dartmouth Medical School, to create information boxes for drug packages equivalent to the nutrition boxes on food products.
"I have heard that the new dean of the DMS is in favor of greater interaction between the humanities and medical sciences, and I believe that communication is one important area for future incorporation," Glinert said.
