Words of Wisdom

An article appeared in the NYTimes today which describes the problems and dangers of adverse drug interactions when different medicines are deemed necessary and prescribed for different ailments and diseases.

The reasons for this are varied: doctors don't necessarily learn about (all of) the medicines a patient is taking when he/she is in the process of prescribing a new one for the patient, patients themselves may not know or remember their current medication regimen, he/she may have more than one doctor who are not coordinating with one another - very common with today's practice of specialzed medicine - etc., etc.

Potentially adverse drug interactions are a part of modern life - research is probably still in its infancy as to how to better ameliorate the problem by chemical means - but until and if ever that goal is reached - doctors and patients will still be faced with this problem.

So, the more complete information a doctor has on a patient's medications (assuming that the doctor is not omnipotent) the better he/she is able to balance and minimize the adi problem. Which leads me to.........

MY NEXT BIG IDEA - Would it be possible to develop for all drugs a unique and inert telltale molecular id embedded within it - that when a drug is taken, is released and circulates in the blood and is then available to be read out with a special blood test or even better sensed and decoded by a non-invasive device which informs the health care practioner of all drugs being taken, together, if possible, with their dosage (over the past two/three weeks?) Sounds way out there, 21st Century like? Maybe, maybe not - but a possible sureproof way of generating the information a health practioner and/or a semiautomatic adi intelligent system requires to make the proper decision as to prescribing additional drugs for a patient coming in with a new ailment.