proposal.tex

@@ -22,21 +22,23 @@ The project goal is to create a website that checks the inactive ingredients of
 
 \section{The Problem}
 
-Finding the full ingredient list for a medication is non-trivial. For people with allergies to so-called "inactive" ingredients, this is a matter of life and death. Patients are left to manage their own medications without assistance. Neither hospitals nor physicians nor pharmacies check the inactive ingredients of a drug formulation against a patient's allergies when recommending or prescribing treatment. The implications of this oversight are considerable: one study (https://bit.ly/3PZMwRQ) identified 38 inactive ingredients known to cause adverse reactions with oral exposure, and found that over 98\% of the drugs they surveyed contained at least one such ingredient. Some formulations of paxlovid, a common drug used to treat COVID-19, contain lactose. Other medications, such as progesterone capsules (which contain peanut oil), were prohibitively difficult to find in formulations without the allergen.
+While determining sensitivities and allergies to high-level, active ingredients in medications is straightforward and common practice, finding the full ingredient list for a medication is non-trivial. For people with allergies to so-called "inactive" ingredients, reliable access to this information is a matter of life and death. As it stands, patients are left to manage their own medications without assistance.
 
-Despite this potentially life-threatening issue, identifying the full ingredient list of a given drug formulation is unreasonably difficult and time consuming. There are very few resources for this information, and those that do exist are extremely difficult for the average consumer to use. For those with on-going illnesses or disabilities, who are struggling to cope with their particular circumstances, it can be even more difficult if not impossible.
+Neither hospitals nor physicians nor pharmacies are accustomed or easily able to check the inactive ingredients of a drug formulation against a patient's allergies when recommending or prescribing treatment. The implications of this oversight are considerable: one study (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7122736/) identified 38 commonly used inactive ingredients known to cause adverse reactions with oral exposure, and found that over 98\% of the drugs they surveyed contained at least one such ingredient. For instance, some common formulations of Paxlovid, a drug regularly used to treat COVID‑19, contain lactose. Other medications, such as progesterone capsules (which contain peanut oil), were prohibitively difficult to find in formulations without the allergen.
+
+An unknown number of people suffer and even die because of the inactive ingredients in their medications. Because this issue is so little-known and unstudied, we have only anecdotes to illustrate the harm that it can cause. Lactose, a frequently used binder in oral medication and a frequent allergen, provides a window into the scope and severity of the issue: In one case, a person spent a year undergoing invasive testing in order to resolve symptoms being caused by a prescription that contained lactose as a binder. In another, a person was prescribed anti-nausea medication after surgery and became increasingly ill before learning the medication contained lactose. In both cases, the prescribing doctors were wholly unaware these drugs contained lactose, because neither they nor their software thought to examine the "inactive" ingredients to cross-reference against known patient allergies.
+
+Despite this potentially life-threatening issue, identifying the full ingredient list of a given drug formulation is unreasonably difficult and time-consuming, often prohibitively so. There are very few resources to access this information, and those that do exist are extremely difficult for the average consumer to use. For those with on-going illnesses or disabilities who are already struggling to cope with their particular circumstances, it can be even more challenging, if not impossible.
 
 \section{Our Solution}
 
-We propose to build a new website that gives the average user access to tailored information from the NIH DailyMed database of drug formulations and ingredients. It will ask a user for their allergens and for a drug name or "NDC" (National Drug Code), then show a list of drug formulation results, highlighting which are dangerous to the user. The results can be filtered by various drug attributes such as the manufacturer or the route of administration. Users will then be able to view a page for each drug formulation containing the ingredients as well as other formulation information.
+We propose to build a new website that gives the average user access to tailored information from the NIH DailyMed database of drug formulations and ingredients. It will ask a user for their allergens and for a drug name or "NDC" (National Drug Code), then show a list of drug formulation results, highlighting which formulations are dangerous to the individual user. The results can be filtered by various drug attributes such as the manufacturer or the route of administration. Users will then be able to view a page for each drug formulation containing the ingredients as well as other formulation information.
 
-The site will be written in Go in order to build a fast web server which scales smoothly as the site receives increasing traffic. MariaDB will be used as the database, as we have existing experience with relational databases, and this particular implementation handles large datasets well. The site will be fully open-source, allowing anyone to host a mirror or add their own features to our work. It will also stay up-to-date by automatically updating its drug database every day, so even newly-released drugs will be available for users to query.
+The site will be written in Go in order to build a fast web server which scales smoothly as the site receives increasing traffic. MariaDB will be used as the database, as we have existing experience with relational databases, and have found that this particular implementation handles large datasets well. The site will be fully open source, allowing anyone to host a mirror or add their own features to our work. It will also stay up-to-date by automatically updating its drug database every day, so even newly-released drugs will be available for users to query.
 
 \section{Value of the Solution}
 
-An unknown number of people suffer and die because of the inactive ingredients in their medications. Because this issue is so little-known and unstudied, we have only anecdotes to illustrate the harm that it can cause. In one case, a person spent a year undergoing invasive testing in order to resolve symptoms being caused by a prescription that contained lactose as a binder. In another, a person was prescribed anti-nausea medication after surgery and became increasingly ill before learning the medication contained lactose. In both cases, the prescribing doctors were wholly unaware these drugs contained lactose, because neither they nor their software thought to examine the "inactive" ingredients.
-
-With our website, people with allergies will be able to easily determine if a drug is safe for them. Patients and consumers won't need to dig through manufacturer websites or learn obscure query languages in order to find vital, life-or-death information. The site will empower patients, who will be able to advocate for themselves and know the specific NDC numbers of drugs that are safe and unsafe for them when discussing treatment options with their doctors, purchasing over the counter medicines, and filling prescriptions. The site will stay up-to-date ensuring that patients can be confident they aren't receiving outdated information.
+With our website, people with allergies and sensitivities will be able to easily determine if a drug is safe for them. Patients and consumers will no longer need to dig through manufacturer websites or learn obscure query languages in order to find vital, often life-or-death information. The site will empower patients to better advocate for themselves and know the specific NDC numbers of drugs that are safe and unsafe for them when discussing treatment options with their doctors, purchasing over the counter medicines, and filling prescriptions. Automatic daily site updates will ensure that patients can be confident they are not operating with outdated information.
 
 Long story short: this site will help save lives, immediately and at no cost to patients, healthcare workers, or governing bodies.
 
@@ -50,20 +52,20 @@ https://sanine.net/git
 
 \subsection{Alena}
 
-Alena Maiden Mueller is a full-stack web developer with 7 years of experience building websites and web APIs. She has a diverse technical background and is passionate about lending her skills to projects that improve the lives of others. At her current job, she builds integrations between scheduling and reporting systems for public safety. Alena lives in Minnesota with her cat Roxie and spends her personal time building software to aid the Trans community.
+Alena Maiden Mueller is a full-stack web developer with 7 years of experience building websites and web APIs. She has a diverse technical background and is passionate about lending her skills to projects that improve the lives of others. At her current job, she builds integrations between scheduling and reporting systems for public safety. Alena lives in Minnesota with her cat Roxie and spends her personal time building software to aid the transgender community.
 
 https://www.linkedin.com/in/alena-maiden-mueller-976732129/
 
 
 \subsection{Entropic}
 
-Entropic Engineering is a boutique engineering firm located in St. Paul Minnesota.  As of this year, they have launched the OpenAeros project in collaboration with the Balvi group.  They will be assisting and mentoring Kate and Alena throughout development of the drug database.
+Entropic Engineering is an engineering firm located in St. Paul Minnesota. As of this year, they have launched OpenAeros supported by Balvi to work on open source UVGI, respirators, and Condensation Particle Counters. They will be assisting and mentoring Kate and Alena throughout development of the drug database.
 
-entropicengineering.com
+entropicengineering.com | openaeros.com
 
 \section{Timeline and Costs}
 
-We have estimated that roughly 760 hours of combined work, working part-time, will be necessary to create this website. We expect to be able to start work in mid-November 2022 and to wrap up in early August 2023.
+We have estimated that roughly 760 hours of combined work – working part-time – will be necessary to create this website. We expect to be able to start work in mid-November 2022 and to launch the website in early August 2023.
 
 \includegraphics[scale=0.5]{gantt}
 
@@ -91,11 +93,11 @@ If we were to act as continued maintainers of this project, we would require fun
 
 After our first release, if there was additional funding provided for full-time development, we could focus our attention on adding more features and expanding the project.
 
-The following are ideas we have for ways to enhance our initial concept:
+The following are a few of the ideas we have discussed that could enhance our initial concept:
 
 \subsubsection{Integrate with a pharmaceutical lawsuit database}
 
-Many pharmaceutical companies have engaged in abusive or exploitative behavior, including producing dangerous or adulterated products, making false claims about their products, engaging in price-fixing, corruption, and bribery, and violating workplace safety and environmental regulations. We propose to allow users of our site to review public information about the ethics of the manufacturer of a given drug formulation in order to allow them to make informed decisions about whom their purchases support. We estimate this feature will cost \$100,000 to implement.
+Many pharmaceutical companies have engaged in abusive or exploitative behavior, including producing dangerous or adulterated products; making false claims about their products; engaging in price-fixing, corruption, and bribery; and violating workplace safety and environmental regulations. We propose to allow users of our site to review public information about the ethics of the manufacturer of a given drug formulation in order to allow them to make informed decisions about whom their purchases support. We estimate this feature will cost \$100,000 to implement.
 
 \subsubsection{Integrate with low-cost online pharmacies}