There's a million ways to make medicine better and we want to hear them all. From the political arena of health care reform, to the personal world of what you want and need medicine to be, Share Your Ideas is where you talk and we listen. So, if you have an idea, a question, or advice on what the world of medicine needs to do in order to be better, please share it. And check back often to see if it becomes reality.
Recently I was watching a news segment and saw a report on fish oil concerns. It felt so terrible to find that some of the good brands of fish oil are using chemicals, PCBs (Polychlorinated biphenyls) and industrial chemicals that were banned in the 1970s because they caused cancer and birth defects. My family relies on fish oil for the omega-3 fatty acids, and we have been consuming fish oil since ages. The report presented a test of 10 different fish oil supplements and each contained PCBs. While searching for PCB, I found that, due to PCB's toxicity and classification as a persistent organic pollutant, PCB production was banned by the United States Congress in 1979 and by the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants in 2001. This was more than enough for me to be worried about the use of fish oil.
After seeing this report, my faith towards medicine is somewhat shaken. Now, I am so worried before buying vitamin pills that I see all the ingredients and search on Internet about them. I think I would rather stick to my fish diet and follow my doctors for omega fatty acid, rather than buying fish oil and inviting ailments. Undoubtedly, doctors and hospitals are the best place to ask for medicine rather than using own knowledge (ignorance) and getting into trouble.
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