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Don't Mix Plavix and Mountain Motorcycling

By terrasig on October 6, 2007.

I've got to admit that I've really enjoyed reading Health Blog from the Wall Street Journal. Short, pithy, and great bites about health/pharma stories that make it into one of the best sources for news in the US (its op-ed page notwithstanding).

So, I was tickled on Friday to see Health Blog interview AggravatedDocSurg. Little did I know that the Aggravated One was a general surgeon in APB's former stomping grounds of The Centennial State.

Here was the quote that made the interview from one of his public service announcements.

We've got advertisements on TV continuously for Plavix. It's not a benign drug. But patients don't think about what they should do when they're taking it. We have a whole slew of folks in the summertime who get their first motorcycle, ride for two days up in the mountains and then get into an accident. It's usually folks in their 50s and 60s. Often it's people who were on Plavix for questionable reasons. Who really needs to be on the medicine? That post was borne out of frustration from what I see in the hospital.

This interview was part of the WSJ Health Blog "Doctor for the Day" feature that I hope will become a weekly fixture.

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Thanks, APB, for the link and your kind words. I think our "Doctor of the Day" will be episodic and probably not weekly. We try hard to plan in advance, then news happens or something else comes up. But the response to the feature has been positive, so we'll try harder to do it more often.

Scott, many thanks for stopping by Terra Sig to say hello. I've been really impressed with what you and Jacob Goldstein are doing at the WSJ Health Blog - it's a must-read every morning. It's also great to see you engaging with the sci/med blogging community with these kinds of features.

I found the good (if aggravated) doctor's PSA to be a bit ambiguous. Anyone knowing nothing about Plavix might interpret the post as warning against drugs that could impair one's faculties. The advice I think he is trying to give is "if you're taking Plavix, try not to start bleeding." I have been told[1] that more Saturday-morning admissions to Boulder Community Hospital's ER result from bagel-slicing accidents than any other cause. Now there's a Plavix interaction you'd like to avoid!

[1] I haven't confirmed the statistic. Si non es vero, es ben trovato.

There is a cute nursery rhyme in Czech:

(sorry for ruining the verse by translation)

A lumberjack is felling trees
He cuts himself, to death he bleeds
Clutching fists won't save the fellow
When platelets is what he needs