Be an Advocate for Your Own Health

My name is Antoinette Duncan and I am the President & CEO of Duncan Life Sciences.  I have worked in FDA-regulated life science industries for 12 years now and have built a successful career around the term “validation”.

val·i·date: to make valid; substantiate; or confirm

In the pharmaceutical and medical device industries, validation is something that the Food & Drug Administration (FDA) requires in order to ensure manufacturers are proving what they claim.  A company can’t just claim that a product is sterile, they have to test it.  A company can’t just say there is "X" amount of something in a product, they have to measure it.  They can’t just do it, they have to PROVE it.

One of the reasons why I love validation is because it fully aligns with my passion: protecting public health.  In my line of work, it is all about protecting the patient – ensuring that the product is doing what it is intended to do while not causing any undue harm.  The patient is ALWAYS first.  When I speak to people about my career, I realize how much the general public is unaware of the inner workings of these industries and confused by the complexities therein.  I want to de-mystify this for consumers through simple information that is easily understood.  Through this blog, I will continue my pursuit helping people and improving public health through knowledge.  

“Knowledge, and the application of it, is power.”

Here are some sample topics I plan to cover in this blog:

  • The drug development process (and why that results in significant costs for you)
  • Why flu shots don’t always work (but are still your best defense)
  • Why it’s ok to leave a medical device implanted forever
  • How medical cannabis is improving public health (and why you can’t just get it from anywhere)
  • How products are continuously monitored once they are made available to the public
  • The damage that contaminated product can do to you

Today, we live in a world where people care about what they are putting in their bodies.  Whether it is the food we eat or the drugs we take, transparency and truth are critical.  There is so much false information out there that it is hard to tell the real from the fake.  In order to #OwnYourHealth, you have to be informed with the truth and that truth needs to come from reliable sources.  We all have one life to live and one body to maintain.  I’m here to help you make that a little bit easier.