08.11.2010 21:10

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MedlinePlus: Drugs, Herbs and Supplements

I have really grown to love what the NIH/National Library of Medicine are doing here at MedlinePlus: Drugs, Herbs and Supplement sections.

When I am not using it to check trade names/generic names I really like to search various drugs that come up in our study and check out the side effects. e.g: “foamy urine” (this would be totally terrifying even before i contemplated what it was communicating to me about my kidneys). Or, you know, check to see whether or not my symptoms that come with taking over the recommending dosage of various OTC allergy/cold meds are worth paying any attention to.

06.19.2010 11:47

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Fluticasone propanoate I love steroids and I love that GSK’s patent for this expired. my allergies are kind of out of control all the time (so at least, you know, less chance of getting a brain tumor hopefully) and its nice to like, be able to breathe and stuff without taking so much pseudoephedrine

Fluticasone propanoate

I love steroids and I love that GSK’s patent for this expired.

my allergies are kind of out of control all the time (so at least, you know, less chance of getting a brain tumor hopefully) and its nice to like, be able to breathe and stuff without taking so much pseudoephedrine

05.15.2010 09:37

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Excuse me if I do not partake in all of the celebration of The 50th Anniversary of The Pill because from my perspective it is still very much a reminder of the exploitation and violation of human rights among Puerto Ricans (and Haitians, and working class women in general) that continues today. Ignoring this reality is easy. Yet, it is a part of my, our history that I can’t simply forget or overlook. If I choose to ignore this history I also choose to ignore the history of activism by members of my community that has helped to create change at an institutional level. Ignoring this reality and history also perpetuates the ideas that historically oppressed communities are not important in the work we do today. There are some things I’m not ready to ignore or forge and many of those are the power of language. The adjectives used to describe members of my community are horrifying. I don’t care if it was how people spoke “in that time,” they were and remain inappropriate. To describe our homeland as “slums,” “jungles,” and our community as “undesirable,” “genetically inferior,” and “ignorant” is defendable? The ideology “that the poor, uneducated, women of Puerto Rico could follow the Pill regimen, then women anywhere in the world could too” is not condescending to you? Don’t be fooled. There was almost nothing that was “female controlled” or “empowering” about being a part of the trial for many participants, especially after they realized they were taking a medication that they did not know was not approved.

— Why I’m Not Celebrating the Pill [via]

01.30.2010 09:47

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PBS FRONTLINE: the Medicated Child

In The Medicated Child, FRONTLINE producer Marcela Gaviria confronts psychiatrists, researchers and government regulators about the risks, benefits and many questions surrounding prescription drugs for troubled children. The biggest current controversy surrounds the diagnosis of bipolar disorder. Formerly called manic depression, bipolar disorder was long believed to exist only in adults. But in the mid-1990s, bipolar in children began to be diagnosed at much higher rates, sometimes in kids as young as 4 years old. “The rates of bipolar diagnoses in children have increased markedly in many communities over the last five to seven years,” says Dr. Steven Hyman, a former director of the National Institute of Mental Health. “I think the real question is, are those diagnoses right? And in truth, I don’t think we yet know the answer.”