The perils of PDAs

As a busy clinician and regular user of a personal digital assistant (PDA), I was appalled to read, in Feisal Adatia and Philippe Bedard's article on handheld software,1 that so many of my colleagues would choose ePocrates software as their drug reference of choice. It's bad enough that some software packages send advertisements along with the data, but what could possibly induce me to use “spyware” that tracks everything I look up?

Adatia and Bedard even remark that this software can track other Web sites visited by users of ePocrates. In other words, doctors are willingly giving marketers a picture of their prescribing habits and leisure activities every time they use this “free” program!

PDA users should know that a PDA version of another widely used print reference, the Tarascon Pocket Pharmacopoeia, has been available for beta-testing for nearly a year, free of charge (see www.tarasconpublishing.com/store/palm.asp). The Tarascon product has no spyware features and includes Canadian trade names, and during this beta-testing period the company is looking for input from users to make the program even better. Eventually there will be a nominal annual or monthly fee for updates — well worth it for the data and your privacy.

Joseph Copeland Physician University of Toronto Toronto, Ont.