Talk:Polypharmacy

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I took out some of Ombudsman (talk ยท contribs)'s new additions. I agree with most edits, but:

  • Polypharmacy is not always "too much". A diabetic with coronary artery disease, chronic bronchitis and painful polyneuropathy will need >10 drugs. Sad fact. Nothing to do with their doctors or the pharmaceutical industry. But this is referred to as polypharmacy, because it's a damn lot of pills, and efforts to reduce them (e.g. long-acting preparations) are desirable.
  • Vaccines is not polypharmacy. Sorry. Original research. A child with a splenectomy will need 5-yearly streptococcal, meningococcal and haemophilus influenzae vaccines. Otherwise it runs an unreasonable risk of dying from a simple strep throat. Sad fact. Lot of vaccines: yes. But vaccines are not classified as pharmaceuticals, and the use of numerous vaccines is not called polypharmacy apart from by Ombudsman.
  • One in four Americans is taking potentially dangerous prescription drugs. Oh really? So no more amoxicillin for poor Ombudsman with a chest infection, as this is a potentially dangerous prescription drug.

Oh, and where are your references? JFW | T@lk 13:47, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

Ombudsman returned a lot of content I deleted. I have made select removals again, this time explaining each move with an adequate edit summary. Putting them back without discussion here (or adequate source support) will meet with an RFC from my side. JFW | T@lk 20:17, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
I hope you don't mind I've invited some pals from Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Drugs[1]. JFW | T@lk 20:33, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Reinserting content

Ombudsman, you reinserted some things with the edit summary "restore link; clarify use of term; isn't it better to present reality, rather than deleting content simply to infer the notion doctors are seldom led to overprescribe by unscrupulous pharma marketing?".

I have no idea what you mean by "deleting content simply to infer [...]". What does pharma marketing have to do with the price of cheese? This was not mentioned in the article, so I really don't understand what you're getting at. JFW | T@lk 21:20, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

Why do you keep on hammering about prescription? In the long run, what really harms the patient is actually taking them! JFW | T@lk 01:08, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] NO TEARS

This is an interesting review, but I wonder if it has gained enough acceptance to be cited here. JFW | T@lk 20:37, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Dead Link

At the very bottom: http://www.med.unc.edu/aging/polypharmacy/ 68.14.57.240 (talk) 13:45, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] At risk vs. Least at risk

I'm new here, so I hope I did this right. I reverted the previous change from "at risk" to "least at risk" demographic groups, since the change didn't make sense (psychiatric and disabled people were included in both groups) and since one of the references appears to have been vandalized. I included Cooldesk's addition regarding education but switched it from high education being a protective factor to low education being a risk factor. ratman (talk) 22:33, 22 May 2008 (UTC)