Donna Barker Communications

Vaccines and informed consent

Okay, so the title isn’t catchy and absolutely needs work, but my passion project – to launch an information website about childhood vaccines that is neither for nor against shots; that does not resort to fear-mongering language about either the possible negative impacts of either vaccines or vaccine-preventable diseases; that is a resource to help parents feel truly informed when they make the decision to vaccinate or not vaccinate their child – won second place in the ChangeEverything New Year’s Resolution contest.

A cool $250 will soon be coming my way. Money I will put toward buying a URL and hosting for the site… it’s a small start!

2009 04 08

Health Blog
sharedVISION column

The Ugly Side of the HPV Vaccine

What the school pamphlets don’t tell you

My health column for the March issue of Today’s Vancouver Woman (formerly sharedVISION Magazine)

In the 2008–2009 school year, B.C. schools began providing the HPV (human papillomavirus) vaccine free to girls in grades 6 and 9. HPV is a sexually transmitted disease that typically has no symptoms and is one cause of cervical cancer.

I learned about the new “recommended childhood immunization” from my son and was upset to hear that many of the girls he hung out with were having the shot. I wanted to call every mother of every Grade 6 girl I knew and explain why I thought the HPV vaccine was a bad idea. But that might have isolated my own child as “the kid with a crazy mom.” Continue Reading »

2009 03 02

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The fine print communicates loudly

Yesterday I was facilitating a communications workshop on message development and audience profiling to a small group of civil society organizations here in Sri Lanka. I was very happy to have the image of the vaccine billboard to use in my presentation as an example of how to use a positive message for an issue that could easily be communicated using negative language (an image of a child with a disease as opposed to the love of the mother who protects her child from a disease).

ANYWAY! Seeing the image projected on a wall I noticed the GSK logo…which I hadn’t noticed when I saw the billboard on the street! I made an assumption that the billboard had been purchased by an organization like the Pediatric Association or some other non-profit interested in child heath… why would I think that?! Because in Canada that’s who would deliver this message – not the company making the vaccine. Continue Reading »

2006 02 24

Vaccine Billboard in Sri Lanka

I walked passed this sign in a non-tourist part of Colombo, Sri Lanka yesterday. Not sure how I feel about it. If it were in downtown Vancouver, my feelings would be clear, but in this country, I have no idea what the impact of hep B and chicken pox is on kids…funny though, that this ad is promoting the two newest vaccines in the arsenal.

2006 02 23

The four most dangerous words in medicine: First do no harm

FDA’s caution, Part 2

If you didn’t read yesterday’s post, check it out before you read this post, which picks up where I left off yesterday (if you want to, of course. There’s no coercion here at Shattering Rose-Coloured Glasses).

For those readers, who, like me will not follow the instruction to read yesterday’s post, because they were asked to, here’s a link to the article I’m discussing:

So let’s start at the CBC. Being a proud Canadian, and just a little left-of-centre in my political views, I turn to our national broadcaster for most of my daily news needs. And, when I want to know about good journalistic principles, the CBC is the first place to look. Here’s what they say: Continue Reading »

2006 02 13

FDA’s caution may be killing people

The work I do with the MediaDoctor.ca project has taught me a lot about how medical news is created and the shortcomings in the reporting of health-related stories.

Top of the list, which I really should have put-together given my day-job, is how reliant health reporters are on industry-generated press releases for their stories. Not just what the story will be about, but the focus of the story and the tone of it.

What does this mean? Well, let’s say, for instance, there’s a new vaccine (It’s Monday…vaccine news day) that will save us from ourselves. And, let’s say this is a vaccine to protect small kids from severe diarrhea. And the severe diarrhea has a medical label: rotavirus. Continue Reading »

2006 02 12

Strongest warning suggested for ADHD drugs

Two million bad kids, 19 dead ones

I opened this email news alert today and felt a wave of nausea. Light-headed. And then a little weepy.

2 million children are prescribed the drugs every month

WASHINGTON (AP) — Ritalin and other stimulant drugs for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder should carry the strongest warning that they may be linked to an increased risk of death and injury, federal health advisers said Thursday.

The Food and Drug Administration advisory panel voted in favor of the “black box” warning after hearing about the deaths of 25 people, including 19 children, who had taken the drugs. The vote was 8-7, with one abstention.

Yeah, it’s the CNN.com version of reality, but that makes this even more shocking. CNN is usually pretty pro-corporate agenda in its spin. Continue Reading »

2006 02 09

Of donuts and data

You know those annoying phone calls everyone gets from time to time…the phone rings, you pick it up, and there’s a second or two of silence. You know that the person on the other end is not a friend. He or she is a telemarketer, wants to sell you something or is working for a market research company.

I get a couple of these calls a week. Unlike many of my friends I neither hang up on the caller nor do I verbally abuse them.

I used to work the phones in a market research company. It was the only job I could find when I first arrived in Vancouver 14 years ago. It was miserable. I empathize with the people making minimum wage, hating what they’re doing and not caring a whit about what they’re trying to sell or the research data they’re gathering. Continue Reading »

2006 02 08

If you have the science, show me. If you don’t, shut up!

What a weekend! Another I’ll long remember.

A surprise fortieth birthday party, organized in Vancouver from Seattle…my sister is amazing! My friends – many of whom I’ve had in my life for twenty years, some of whom have “only” been walking along my life path for a couple of years – are the most supportive and loving gang of people ever brought into one life.

I am truly blessed.

In addition to a party with so many old friends, I also met with someone for the first time this weekend. The professor who founded the Neural Dynamics Research Lab at the Vancouver General Hospital: Dr. Chris Shaw. And our meeting, I predict, was one of those transformative events that happens so rarely in life: Prof. Shaw walked into my house this weekend (with potted flowers in honour of my birthday…is that nice or what?) and offered the missing third leg of the stool that I have been trying to make stand for nine years. Continue Reading »

2006 02 03

Did 007 Ever Use Ricin?

Oh, sweet-mother-of-darkness. I need a pill.

Back in October I blogged about the pending avian flu pandemic, the Spanish flu catastrophe of 1918 and projected, tongue-in-cheek, the following:

“If you pick up any newspaper, turn on any TV news in the next weeks and months, you’ll hear lots of breathless hyperbole about the imminent, unstoppable and deadly flu pandemic that is on the verge of ravaging the Earth. You’ll be told to get your regular flu vaccine, and your avian flu shot, and your anti-terrorist immunizations, and then you’ll willingly ask for antidepressants, and anti-panic pills, and high blood pressure medication because the world is such a scary place to live these days.”

And today, what lands in my inbox, but news from the New York Times that the first clinical trial for the ricin vaccine has proven to be safe and effective. Continue Reading »

2006 01 31