Letters to the Editor
KitchenGirl
Published Letters: 642 Editor's Choice: 39
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Getting all your medical advice from a pharmacy is probably not the best idea
[Read the article: My business trip ended with me in four-point restraints!]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I'm really not following why you would think the doctors are only there to look for drug-drug interactions. They're there to advise and answer any questions the patient has about taking the drug, even if its the only drug they're on. As in drug-patient interactions.
I think that because that's exactly what you just said. Drug-patient interactions require far more information than what is available in medication packaging. They require knowledge of social history (ETOH intake, smoking habits, exercise habits, weight, age, etc.) as well as in many cases a knowledge of the body chemistry of the particular patient.
Your "pharmacy doctor" is only telling you the information that is available to them, meaning what that particular drug does when taken in conjunction with other drugs. Unless they know you as a patient, have your family history, social history, lab workups and records of any old physicals that you've had, they know next to nothing about the drug-patient interaction beyond the generalities that are available from the FDA (i.e., birth control pills cause blood clots in 2% of the test patients).
Let's use that example, actually: there is one blood test which, if positive, will practically guarantee that you will develop blood clots while on estrogen-based BC. Without that lab result, which the doctor at the pharmacy doesn't have and can't order for you, s/he is not able to advise you on whether or not you should take that pill. All they can tell you is that in the general patient population, your risk of developing a fatal blood clot is less than 2%. Tiny odds, unless you happen to be one of those people who tests positive for Leiden Factor V. And then your odds go up to something crazy like 50%. Still want to take that pill?
Another example: Coumadin. Coumadin is contraindicated for alcohol, because of the way the liver metabolizes it. Alcohol will increase the immediate anticoagulant effects of Coumadin, putting users at a very high risk of bleeding to death if they injure themselves. But! Broccoli, green tea, asparagus, spinach, and cranberry juice all diminish the effects of Coumadin. So: should you be allowed to have a glass of wine a night if you're on anticoagulants? Well... how much leafy greens do you eat? Does your pharmacy doctor collect all that information from you, and do they have your previous INR at hand to tell you to increase or decrease your intake of any of the above?
Certainly pharmacists may know more than doctors about the drugs they handle every day. That is their only job, whereas it is the job of the physician to know quite a bit more about the entire patient body. So, they are a useful team as the pharmacist can better keep up with developments in the pharmaceutical world (new drugs, discontinued drugs, more efficacious drugs, etc.) while the physician can say this or that drug is better for you because of who you are and what you are built of as an individual.
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Rubella leaves a swath of destruction behind it
[Read the article: The K Chronicles]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Rubella, also known as German measles, will probably not kill your child if you don't vaccinate, but if your child carries it and is in close proximity to any pregnant woman that woman has a 20% chance of miscarriage, and if her unborn baby/fetus/blob of cells/however you wish to define it *is* born, it will very likely be born with an astonishing array of incurable birth defects, of which severe mental retardation is but one.
Vaccinating against Rubella does more than just protect your child from a nasty disease -- it is a true "public health" vaccination.
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Vaccines contain no mercury
[Read the article: The K Chronicles]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]All of those vaccinations are full of mercury. I don't know why the pharmaceutical companies make them that way, but they do. You will be overloading your child with mercury for his entire life. Sorry to scare you, but it is the truth.
No, it is not. It is false. But A+ for scaremongering, excellent job. You are the very personification of "A little knowledge is a dangerous thing."
With the exception of the flu vaccine and one manufacturer of the DTaP, childhood vaccines contain no thimerosal, and most never contained it.
http://www.fda.gov/CBER/vaccine/thimerosal.htm#t1
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Everyone is boring in their own way
[Read the article: Men, talk among yourselves]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Most of the women I know are boring as hell; all they talk about is each other, other people that we know, scandals, perceived scandals, and rumored scandals. Zzzzzz.
Most of the men I know are boring as hell; all they talk about are sports and the stupid/hilarious shit they got up to while drunk. Zzzzz.
I am fairly certain I bore the hell out of at least 70% of the people I meet, and they bore me right back. At least it's a symmetrical relationship.
A few of the women I know and a few of the men I know talk about things like books, concerts, building things, programming, traveling, and the sorts of things that I find interesting and also talk about, so that's good because that way we don't bore each other senseless.
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No mercury in vaccines
[Read the article: The K Chronicles]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Really, do you think that the FDA has our best interests at heart, these days? So, they don't approve products that harm us? So, if the FDA says it is safe, then one should blindly take them at their word?
Did you read the page?
The only thing that FDA site stated was that the vaccines contained no mercury. They are reporting the contents of the vial. Anyone with a chemistry degree can pretty easily verify what is in those tubes, it's not a secret. This site merely lists the vials which do and don't contain mercury, for easy reference. You can find the same information elsewhere, if you search for it.