Friday, November 7, 2008
Tell me about your extra drugs!
Earlier this year, the Associated Press did a big investigation of the levels of pharmaceuticals in our drinking and ground water. A lot of the drugs get into the water after passing through people's bodies, but some end up there because patients are following the traditional instructions for disposal of unused medications--flush 'em.
I'm working on a story, as part of our Medicine and the Environment series, about what physicians can do to help fix this problem. Obviously, if you have a drug takeback program in your area, that's great. But if you don't, what should you be telling patients to do with their leftover meds?
I found one article that details the laborious process (involving kitty litter and unmarked containers) recommended by the federal government, but I highly doubt that's getting a lot of play in offices or homes around the country. So, has anyone ever asked you what to do with their unused medications? What do you tell them? If it were a relatively simple process, would you be willing to collect the meds?
Labels: drugs, environment
posted by Stacey Butterfield at
3:26 PM
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4 Comments:
This is an interesting issue--especially since it came out two months ago that hospitals are flushing millions of pounds of drugs per year.
http://www.truthout.org/article/health-facilities-flush-estimated-250-million-pounds-drugs-a-year
Medicine is not a very "green" industry in general--it's surprising the general media has not picked up on this much. We agonize over how much petroleum it takes to ship a banana from Chile to LA, but we never hear how much diesel it takes to move a Band-Aid from China to Peoria!
I usually tell patients to bring in their unwanted drugs, and we can usually find a way to use them. Should a patient throw away a prescription if it cost them $1,000? The pharmacies will not take stuff back, of course.
Thanks for the link. I hadn't even realized that entire hospitals are flushing their drugs. Using the unwanted meds sounds like the ideal solution. What kinds of uses do you find for the pills that are brought in?
THANK YOU for initiating this discussion, I had a patient just ask me about this yesterday as I prescribed amoxicillin liquid to his daughter (that we often give "extra" of for spills/etc..) I had no answer for him. Found this post searching on the web.
So...what ARE providers telling their patients, what do you recommend I start telling my clients and when/where will the article be published?
BEP, here's a link to article: http://www.acpinternist.org/archives/2009/02/drugs.htm I'm afraid I didn't find much in the way of disposal options other than takeback programs or the government recommendations. Concerns about contamination, expiration and liability seem to prevent reuse of meds in most places.
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