Sorry, but it's another vaccine post...

Today I found another great article concerning vaccines. Just last week I was in Des Moines working on my immunization certification, and this week I had an exam in which some of the material dealt with vaccines, so vaccines and immunizations are fresh in my mind right now.

Since we are on the cusp of flu season, I felt it was pertinent to post this article and remind everyone how important it is to get a flu shot. There are a lot of people I know who still won't get a flu shot either because they are terrified of needles or are convinced that getting the shot might actually give them the flu. As health professionals, we need to do whatever we can to dispel the myth that getting the vaccine can cause the flu, and instead educate our patients about how dangerous the flu actually can be (it kills 36,000 Americans every year - mostly the elderly and very young) and encourage them to receive a vaccination.

Kids may not want to get a flu shot because they are afraid of getting shots, but I believe parents should be more insistent that their children receive the shots anyway, because in the grand scheme of things, actually getting the flu is much, much, worse than any transient anxiety that comes with getting a shot. Health professionals should join the CDC in doing all they can to encourage children to get a flu shot!

Yet another reason to vaccinate

Today comes news that the FDA is updating the label of Gardasil, the vaccine against HPV, to include new information stating that the vaccine also protects women from two other forms of cancer.

Hopefully, this will encourage even more young women to receive the vaccine. This vaccine has garnered some controversy in the past, as some parents feel that their daughters are too young to be receiving the vaccine and are being forced to have the "sex talk" when their daughters are too young. However, this news reinforces the fact that this is an important vaccine for young women to receive, and if we can vaccinate women against HPV, less men will be contracting HPV as well, and we can go a long way to reduce the incidence of genital warts, improving our public health in this country.

Are we over-treating arthritis?

As much as I can't underestimate the problem we have in this country of people being underserved by our health care system, I feel it is important that we also recognize when certain aspects of our health care system are over-utilized.

This article on CNN.com highlights one way in which we may be seeking too much health care. I think it is important to recognize when we are over-utilizing health care because, as we all know, our system can only provide so much care, and when the system is needlessly used, it limits the amount of care it can provide to other people - people who may need it more.

I recognize that arthroscopic surgery is attractive to many people because it is very uninvasive and has a very short recovery time compared to other orthopedic surgeries, but it is still surgery, and it seems to me as if more people ought to be attracted to the less invasive option of medication and physical therapy, especially if these options are just as effective. Perhaps this study will lead us in a different direction in how we treat arthritis, while at the same time addressing, in a small way, the problem of the over-utilization of our health care resources.

Study says no link between MMR vaccine and autism

I found this article on CNN.com today, and it reports on a major study that shows no link between autism and the MMR vaccine. I have been interested in this particular topic once I started hearing that many parents are now deciding not to vaccinate their children due to fears of their child developing autism. That sort of decision seems very irresponsible to me, given that the evidence supporting a link between the vaccine and autism has always been tenuous at best, and also considering the public health risks that infectious diseases like the measles pose to this country's health care system.

Of course, this will not end the debate, as it is only one study, but hopefully more scholarship of this nature will emerge, and put people's concerns about the MMR vaccine to rest.

For those of you wondering about the blog's name...

...you can find the answer here.

Welcome/Intro

Hello everyone! This is Ben Colwell, and on this blog I am going to be posting about electronic drug information and drug information software for PDAs. I am currently a third-year pharmacy student at the University of Iowa, and I am posting on this blog as required by a course that I am currently taking at Iowa.

I really feel that electronic drug information and the use of PDAs is going to prove invaluable in my career as a pharmacist. Using drug information is efficiently and effectively is going to help me provide the best patient care, and doing so electronically is the best way to accomplish this goal.

The problem, however, is knowing which electronic sources are going to work the best for me. I have some experience working with electronic drug information, but I hardly fancy myself an expert, and I hope that this class helps me become more comfortable with different electronic drug information sources, so that I may choose which ones are going to be the best for me in my future work. I will probably only use one or two programs on my PDA once I begin practicing, and I believe that being exposed to the array of different products that are out there will help me make the best decision.

For now, I don't have a lot of actual commentary on any particular products, because the course has just begun, but in the weeks ahead, I will be commenting on various electronic drug information sources and PDA software programs. This class is going to be a learning experience for me, and hopefully through this blog it will also be a learning experience for those of you lucky enough to be reading this blog.

Thank you for visiting my blog, and I hope to be hearing from you as well in the form of comments!