Regresaremos

I'm back. After conferring with friends and reading more of my favorite blogs, I've found a type of focus for this online forum. I hope to get into a groove and eventually take this inchoate blog to full maturity.

In science policy:

Mismanagement of Medicine Among the Elderly
For those of us with elderly friends and family, this article is especially disconcerting. Patient compliance with a doctor's prescribed drug regimens is often problematic for many reasons. It's easy to get tired of constantly taking pills for chronic conditions and often people are not aware of the reasons to complete a course of antibiotics even though they feel better. This article draws attention to the particularly difficult circumstances of our elderly. I think this article is especially pertinent as we consider the state of health care in the US.

Don't Drink the Water
It's amazing how prophetic Dave Matthews can be at times. I heard this on the news this morning and found several papers reporting the story. Sex hormones, mood stabilizers, and antibiotics are being detected in our drinking water. While I've heard many voices in the past 1.5 yrs speaking of the "ridiculous" billion dollar H2O industry when we perfectly good drinking water in our sinks, this certainly seems to suggest a case can be made to the contrary. It may be early to link this with the prevalance of any conditions we now see, but according to the EPA's assistant administrator for water Benjamin Grumbles this is a recognized concern that they are "taking seriously."

Sources: Washington Post, San Francisco Chronicle