PACEMAKER: Spring 2006

Worth Quoting

Donald Black, M.D.
St. Louis Post-Dispatch and other media outlets

More than a decade after the Gulf War, veterans deployed to that war are still more likely to suffer from health problems than non-deployed veterans, according to a story that quoted Black, professor of psychiatry at University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics. Researchers found that more than 28 percent of deployed Gulf War veterans suffered from a complex of unexplained symptoms called chronic multi-symptom illness, or CMI, the newspaper reported. That figure compares with almost 16 percent of non-deployed veterans with similar symptoms. The story noted that results of the study appeared in the American Journal of Epidemiology. “It's a good news-bad news story,” Black said. “The good news is that fewer veterans report symptoms at 10 years (after the war). The bad news is that for many veterans the symptoms persist.”

Michael O'Donnell, M.D.
Asbury Park (N.J.) Press and other media outlets

A New Jersey woman now living in the Netherlands has started a Web site devoted to disseminating information about bladder cancer after she found little information about the disease elsewhere. The site, located at www.blcwebcafe.org, earned high praise from bladder cancer specialists such as O’Donnell, a urologist and director of oncology at the University of Iowa Roy J. and Lucille A. Carver College of Medicine. “The Bladder Cancer Web Cafe is simply the best single site on the World Wide Web for patients with bladder cancer to find out information about their disease and treatments,” he said. “It also provides an interactive (or passive) forum from which to learn how other patients with similar problems are coping with their disease.”

Mary Ross, R.Ph.
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and other media outlets

If you'd never open your refrigerator and pop the top on the milk jug—two weeks past its expiration date—and chug it down, then why would you open your medicine cabinet and pop a pill that's two months—worse yet, two years—past its expiration date? Ross, pharmacy assistant director at University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics, posed that not-so-rhetorical question to make a point: People tend to take the expiration dates on their food products much more seriously than expiration dates on their prescription and over-the-counter drugs. “But, over time, the chemical makeup and potency of medications changes,” Ross said. “Taking outdated medications may also mean you are taking a pill that is not going to help you. Many medications become ineffective past their expiration date. Heat, cold and moisture can also affect a medication's potency.”