Welcome to the seventeenth edition of Drugs and Pharmacology. Today, we discuss how banning over-the-counter drugs to thwart drug abuse could affect you, how bacteria respond to antibacterials, the link between a popular asthma medication and suicide, how vitamins may actually worsen prostate cancer, and other topics.

Remember, we review the latest blogs related to drugs — medicinal, recreational, interactional, personal, professional, or any other aspect. If you were left out in this round, just leave a comment with your blog entry. You can check out the archives for every edition of this carnival. Read more →

The first doses of vaccine for the Influenza A H1N1 virus (“swine flu”) should be available in October of 2009. Due to an initial limited supply, the World Health Organization (WHO) recommends that healthcare workers should be first in line to receive the vaccine. Immunizing healthcare workers against the H1N1 virus not only provides personal protection for the workers, but also protects patients and reduces absenteeism in healthcare settings. Unfortunately, a recent study published by the British Medical Journal (BMJ) reports that less than half of healthcare workers surveyed are willing to be vaccinated against pandemic flu. Read more →

In recent years, there has been renewed interest in creating new smallpox vaccines due to the threat of the smallpox pathogen being used as a bioterrorism tool. The vaccinia virus vaccine has been used to prevent smallpox disease since the late 18th century and, until 30 years ago, most countries conducted routine smallpox vaccination programs. Thanks to these efforts, smallpox was virtually eradicated from the world by 1977, and many countries discontinued the vaccination programs. For this reason, most Americans under 35 years of age have never had smallpox disease, nor been vaccinated against the disease, making immunity effectively nonexistent in today’s population. Read more →

Arguably, one of the greatest public health advances in the last century has been the advent of safe and effective vaccines for deadly diseases. Today, several vaccine-preventable diseases have all but disappeared from our lives, thanks to all 50 states mandating vaccination for school children and making routine vaccination a public health priority.

Children today receive dozens of doses of vaccines to prevent at least 16 illnesses throughout their infancy, childhood, and adolescence. For almost every child, these vaccines are safe and effective, leaving behind no more than a sore arm or leg for a few hours. However, the number of parents refusing vaccines for their children is rising. Read more →

Why am I writing this article? I admit, even to myself it seems a little random. But a combination of recent events and articles I’ve read lately lead me to write this, my pleading to doctors if you will. Let me brief you.

Recently I wrote Acknowledging Vaccine Concerns. The main point of the article was to note that doctors who acknowledge their patient’s vaccine concerns would help increase the vaccination compliance number more than any other method. Read more →

In the 11th Report on Carcinogens, the US government added Hepatitis C, Hepatitis B, and certain papilloma viruses to their list of substances known to be carcinogenic. This represented the first time ever that viruses were included.

At the sixth annual International Conference of the American Association for Cancer Research, Dr. Andrew J. Dannenberg stated, “I believe that, conservatively, 15 to 20% of all cancer is caused by infections, however, the number could be larger, maybe double.” Read more →