ADVANCE Extra

Learning in the City of Lakes

AMT held its annual meeting in Minnesota.

View Comments (0)Print ArticleEmail Article

Facebook reddit Newsvine Del.icio.us Digg

Yahoo! Buzz LinkedIn StumbleUpon Google Bookmarks Mixx

Continued from page 1...

When it comes to work stress, Dr. Hernandez said you need emotional intelligence to be aware of your trigger symptoms and to be able to regulate them.

He talked about people's different reactions to change and that "change is right between our ears."

"Some find it exciting, others may say, 'Oh God, another change," he said. "Sometimes change can be fun, but sometimes change can be stressful, and people react differently to it."

Dr. Hernandez had attendees participate in an activity about change. He asked everyone to get into pairs and to change three things about their appearance without letting their partner see. Then they had to turn around and have their partner guess what they changed.

"People who liked the game tend to be more innovate and like change in the lab. They are early adapters," Dr. Hernandez explained. "People who didn't like the game liked things the way they were."

Being in the service industry can additionally be stressful, Dr. Hernandez said. Laboratorians need to be able to practice "verbal jujitsu" and not take problems personally.

"If a patient comes up to you and says, 'I'm so mad at you. I've been in the waiting room forever,' you can respond with, 'I understand you are upset. Let's see what we can do to help you," he noted.

Vaccines and Challenges
There has been a lot of media attention on vaccines over the past few years. In her lecture "Vaccine Safety: Issues and Challenges," Patti Segal Freeman, JD, MPH, Minnesota Department of Health, spelled out information about vaccines and studies about them.

When it comes to creating vaccines, safety and effectiveness go hand and hand. "It takes a long time to develop a single vaccine-usually 10 years or more," she said. "Vaccines must be proven safe and effective before ever reaching the public." She mentioned no vaccine is 100 percent safe or effective.

Dr. Freeman outlined process of pre-licensure clinical trials, which happen after animal trials:

Phase I--20-100 people receive the vaccine.
Phase I--Hundreds of volunteers receive the vaccine. These trials might take a few months, or they might last for years.
Phase III--These trials may last several years. A few hundred to tens of thousands of volunteers may be involved.
Phase IV--Tracks vaccines after licensing.
She noted every lot of vaccine is sampled and tested for safety, potency and purity to assure uniformity in every dose given.

"Vaccines are very sensitive," she said. "Changes in temperature during the manufacturing process, for example, can make them lose strength."

Dr. Freeman talked about how part of the confusion about vaccines comes from information overload. So many people get information on the Internet, and the information is not always correct.

She specifically discussed the controversy with the MMR vaccine and connections to autism. This started with a study done by Andrew Wakefield in 1998, where he took a case sample of 12 children, 10 of whom had autism. There was no control group.

His hypothesis was that the MMR vaccine induces a series of events that can result in a child developing autism.

Since then, no epidemiological studies have been able to corroborate with his findings. Dr. Freeman also mentioned Wakefield was paid by litigants against the MMR vaccine to do the study and he had a patent pending for a single antigen measles vaccine. Additionally, 10 of the 12 coauthors retracted their support after the study was published.

Thimerosal, a preservative used to prevent bacterial growth in multi-dose vaccine vials, has also been questioned as a cause for autism. The American Academy of Pediatrics and the Department of Health and Human Services both said there is no evidence of harm from thimerosal, but it is also a removal source of mercury. Many manufactures have removed thimerosal from children's vaccines.

Amanda Koehler (akoehler@advanceweb.com) is associate editor of ADVANCE.

Learning in the City of Lakes

< Previous
1 | 2

Email: *

Email, first name, comment and security code are required fields; all other fields are optional. With the exception of email, any information you provide will be displayed with your comment.

First *

Last

Name:

	Title	Field	Facility
Work:

City

State

Location:

Comments: *

To prevent comment spam, please type the code you see below into the code field before submitting your comment. If you cannot read the numbers in the below image, reload the page to generate a new one.

	Enter the security code below: *