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Commentaries
March 25, 2008Commentaries is where Minnesota Public Radio welcomes your thoughtful opinion about current events and issues. Commentaries are like letters to the editor. To be considered for publication, your commentary should be issue-related, clearly written, and follow our Terms of Use. New insights into ongoing topics are especially welcome. Not all commentaries received are published. For topical interaction with others, visit the discussion groups.
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Local pharmacies critical to small town health
The role of the local pharmacy in a small town can be a matter of life and death. [MPR News: Small town pharmacies struggle]
Access to a physician can be very limited and many residents have only their local pharmacist to turn to. That pharmacist usually knows as much or more about a residents health history than the resident himself. This familiarity and knowledge of the resident, when coupled with the pharmacist's expert drug knowledge, can be life-saving.
It is very possible for a large chain drugstore to develop this type of relationship with its community's residents, but how does one replace 27 years? I think this small town will only truly feel the impact of losing its local pharmacy after a period of years.
Todd Meier
Ham Lake, Minn.
Ballast sytems could be used by terrorists
If we do not put our military in charge of a program to verify clean ballast water we leave open the door for a terrorist to use these sytems. [MPR News: MPCA draws up ballast water regulations]
Huge quantities of water-soluable drugs, caustic materials, deliberate introduction of invasive species to sabotage our fishing industries. Along with unsuspecting ships taking on purposly polluted ballast water to do harm, virus-filled systems doing the dumping going undetected are all possible.
Donald Mitchel
Spencerport, N.Y.
Pharmacist salary, hours, and service
$100,000 is well above the salary that most pharmacists are making. [MPR News: Small town pharmacies struggle]
For most companies, the starting salary is not much different than the salary for those who have been there longer. It is a high-stress, lousy-hours career with lower and lower margins for increased expectation of service. We love helping our patients, but struggle with "giving away" our services.
Kathy Tande
Park Rapids, Minn.
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