Faculty Bibliography

Insurance coverage Although the FDA's goal is to reduce health care costs by improving access to treatments, remember that both public and private insurers are not likely to cover these treatments if a prescription isn't involved

Insurance coverage unlikely Although the FDA's goal is to reduce health care costs by improving access to treatments, remember that both public and private insurers are not likely to cover these treatments if a prescription isn't involved

Advocates of expanding over-the-counter medications point to aspirin or allergy drugs as examples that have proved successful without a doctor's prescription. But for every patient who is glad not to have to visit my office for an allergy prescription, I can point to another patient who has suffered side effects like fatigue that he or she didn't realize were due to that same pill, or where the allergic reaction was due instead to food. Although the FDA's goal is to reduce health care costs by improving access to treatments, remember that both public and private insurers are not likely to cover these treatments if a prescription isn't involved. Insurance companies typically rely on a doctor's authorization to document medical necessity. This is another way the FDA plan could backfire, as patients might not be able to afford the out-of-pocket expense and could even go without treatment altogether. A doctor's appreciation of a pharmacist's acumen is not the same thing as saying that he or she should replace a physician. The American Pharmacists Association is wrong to back the FDA proposal, and the American Academy of Family Physicians is right to oppose it

Self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) bearing pendant carbohydrate functionality are frequently employed to tailor glycan-specific bioactivity onto gold substrates. The resulting glycoSAMs are valuable for interrogating glycan-mediated biological interactions via surface analytical techniques, microarrays, and label-free biosensors. GlycoSAM composition can be readily modified during assembly by using mixed solutions containing thiolated species, including carbohydrates, oligo(ethylene glycol) (OEG), and other inert moieties. This intrinsic tunability of the self-assembled system is frequently used to optimize bioavailability and antibiofouling properties of the resulting SAM. However, until now, our nanoscale understanding of the behavior of these mixed glycoSAMs has lacked detail. In this study, we examined the time-dependent clustering of mixed sugar + OEG glycoSAMs on ultraflat gold substrates. Composition and surface morphologic changes in the monolayers were analyzed by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and atomic force microscopy (AFM), respectively. We provide evidence that the observed clustering is consistent with a phase separation process in which surface-bound glycans self-associate to form dense glycoclusters within the monolayer. These observations have significant implications for the construction of mixed glycoSAMs for use in biosensing and glycomics applications.

For all the attention in the media about potential side effects of vaccines like Merck's HPV vaccine Gardasil, not enough time or attention has been paid congratulating Merck for its shingles homerun, Zostavax. Zostavax is the only vaccine available to keep shingles from occurring. Studies from 2003 show that it is 50% effective at doing so. The Center for Disease Control recommends that everyone over the age of 60 receive it, and the author agrees with this recommendation since Shingles can be devastating and half of all cases are in people over the age of 60