As it turns out, this whole bit about the use of antibiotics in livestock and poultry is a complex issue. It’s well beyond anything that anyone would guess at first blush. The best online summary is the position paper put out by Food Marketing Institute. Curiously enough, it doesn’t have a year on it. Based on the references, I’d guess it was probably around 2005.
The Food and Drug Administration has approved the use of therapeutically low doses of antibiotics in feed. However, very few studies were conducted. They decided that giving little bits of antibiotics to animals would help avoid illness. What this means in practical life is that they will grow faster and produce more meat prior to being slaughtered and eaten.
Everybody agrees that using too many antibiotics in humans can cause humans to become resistant to those antibiotics. This has been blamed on everything from patients who want a prescription for an illness that isn’t caused by bacteria to doctors feeling they need to give a prescription to justify their fee. This kind of talk has been around for a long time. Read more on Antibiotics in Livestock Feed Endanger The Entire World…
Filed under medicine, News, prescription drugs by on Sep 23rd, 2012. 1 Comment. 
Whitney Houston’s death might be “old news” already, but I still think her death may not have been in vain.
Because Whitney was a star, we were treated to hearsay before facts. She drank in the morning, in a public place, and according to some observers may have been behaving a bit strangely.
There is an old screener for alcoholism called the “CAGE” questionnaire. It’s named after the four questions that presumably even a primary care physician — who has little room left in an overtaxed memory — could remember. Read more on Whitney Houston’s Death May Not Have Been in Vain…
Filed under abuse, Addictions, Celebrities, Disease, prescription drugs, Substance Abuse by on Aug 23rd, 2012. Comment.
To paraphrase some recent political campaigns, the FDA was against Qnexa before they were for it.
I’ve written about this diet drug compound before — HERE And HERE.
Last time I wrote about this “drug,” I thought it was down for the count. Aauugghh!!!!
Like a scene from “Night Of The Living Diet Drugs” – it is back from the grave.
You bet your life! (Literally if you take this) – our protective government watchdogs at the FDA originally said this was too dangerous to unleash on the public. Then – as the politicians say – they did a “Flip Flop.” This No-Vowel remedy QNEXA (ok, it has a couple of vowels, but not enough) is not actually a drug — it is a combination of two drugs.
This is of course, the cheapest way to get a new product on the market and eliminate R&D costs as well as testing for safety and efficacy. The company takes two separate FDA-approved agents and combines – kind of like making Frankenstein out of left-over body parts.
(This is turning into a Halloween column, isn’t it? Sorry.) Read more on They’re Ba-a-a-a-ck!!! Zombie Diet Drugs!!!…
Filed under eating disorders, medicine, News, Nutrition, prescription drugs, weight by on Feb 28th, 2012. Comment.
Many people are proud of the state from which they came. But I value the state they (we, all of us) can go to.
It’s called a “Resource State.”
Don’t bother looking on a map – unless it is a map of the cerebral cortex. Yet, it isn’t clearly defined as a location in the brain either.
I know it sounds mysterious, but it is easy to access and the benefits once you get there are astronomical. I think I need to give you some illustrations to make my point.
Once when I was in prison (that always gets attention – but actually I was employed as a prison psychiatrist and not serving time for criminal activities) I treated a young man of 28 who was doing time for armed robbery. His problem was depression with occasional suicidal ideation. Read more on The Resource State — Your Magic Ticket To Happiness…
Filed under Brain Surgery, depression, medicine, News, prescription drugs by on Feb 16th, 2012. Comment.
I was trying to remember when prescription drugs were allowed to advertise on television (called “Direct To Consumer Advertising, or DTCA”). Fortunately, I didn’t have to bust my memory cells – I just had to “Google it.”
1995. The year all HHHHell broke loose. At least if you were a doctor.
Suddenly, patients could make their own diagnoses and prescriptions and just phone the order in to their doctor. At least, that’s how most patients thought it should work. And – hoo boy! – were they upset when it wasn’t quite that easy.
Comedian Dennis Miller has a hilarious line: “I divide medical practitioners into two camps. Those who will give me a scrip for Vicodin over the phone, and those who won’t.”
Hilarious if you aren’t a doctor, that is. Read more on RX Package Insert — Just Read It!…
Filed under Diagnosis, medicine, News, prescription drugs by on Dec 1st, 2011. Comment.
If there is one time to get scared, it is when a drug company, a government agency, a popular magazine article or – heaven forbid – your doctor says a metabolite is “better” than the drug it came from.
Filed under prescription drugs by on Sep 22nd, 2011. 3 Comments.
Number 5 in the USA Today catalog of medical changes in the past 25 years is (imagine a drum roll playing – and CYMBAL CRASH!) — antidepressants are the most popular drugs. Read more on Antidepressants Are Popular — And Dangerous…
Filed under medicine, News, prescription drugs by on Sep 9th, 2011. Comment.
Recently, a patient’s widow called to cancel a routine assessment because the patient suddenly died. There had been no freak heart attack and it had not been one of those undiagnosed cancers. He just “died, suddenly, in his sleep, I guess,” she said. That got me thinking.
The first class of drugs I think about, when I think of sudden death, are the stimulants. I remember when someone decided that everyone who was going to get stimulants needed to have a “cardiocentric” examination first. Doctors asked a lot of questions about chest pain, and administered an electrocardiogram. These precautions were especially interesting because they were – of course – used before prescribing Ritalin. Many child psychiatrists had laughed at me when I cautioned usage of this job, claiming it was the safest medication ever invented. Once – at the peak of my massive weight — an endocrinologist offered me a prescription of Meridia, to get rid of my excess weight. He did not think the fact that there had been a “few” reports of sudden death should get in the way of my using it. Read more on Sudden Death in Psych Patients — From Medicine…
Filed under depression, Diagnosis, End Of Life, medicine, prescription drugs by on Aug 19th, 2011. Comment.
I’m nowhere near what anyone would call a “News Junkie.” My husband, a former newspaper man, often calls my attention to articles of interest and I see headlines occasionally on various web pages, such as Yahoo or Google. But this type of story seems to come up pretty regularly any more.
Yes, most people in our country are in terrible shape. I probably harp about it more than I need to. But remember what Mark Twain (another newspaper man) once said:
“Everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it!” Read more on Who Needs Wonder Drugs? We Have Vitamin C!…
Filed under medicine, News, prescription drugs, weight by on Aug 19th, 2011. Comment.
The next person to see me made a dramatic entrance. First, she had gotten a head start on her crying in the waiting room. But more than the sound of her crying and sobbing, she could barely make it through the waiting room door. I am no good at guessing someone’s weight. She later admitted to being 380 pounds. I took her word, as our clinic’s scale only went to 300. Her general appearance was that she was swollen with water – a human sponge. The edema bloated every part of her body, and her crying eyes were nearly swollen shut. I started by asking her when her problems began. She was now 42, and said she had thought everything was okay until age 15, when she had been raped by a “friend of the family.” This man was not really a friend, he was a person who went to the same church. Moreover, he was a Sunday school teacher. You would think that by now everyone would know that being a Sunday school teacher does not make someone a saint. But this family had not yet figured it out. In many such cases, this type of person is shielded by the religious community, and even the victim’s parents are often in denial. This woman was lucky. Her parents told her that they were going to prosecute this sinner to the extent of the law.
There was a trial, and she had testified. She thought everything had turned out great, and so did her parents. The rapist was convicted and sent to jail. Again, those who are experienced in these things know that this type of trauma is never over quite so easily. The woman went on with her life and ended up in a really abusive relationship — the kind where someone locks you up and won’t let you leave the house and beats you if you look out the window. By the time she got the courage to escape this living hell and seek a shelter, had a peck of kids. They lived in this shelter for over a year before she found that she had what it takes to start over. She went to school, gained some clerical skills, and started over. She was actually doing pretty well until something happened that triggered a demon she didn’t know had possessed her. She was called for jury duty and went, with pride, wanting to do her civic duty. She couldn’t. She had a panic attack as soon as she entered the courtroom. She ran to the ladies’ room, threw up, and tried to enter the courtroom again – and it was even worse. People thought she was having a heart attack, and they sent an ambulance for her. I do not recommend this means of getting out of jury duty, although it sure worked for her. Read more on Murphy’s Law Of Medicine At Work…
Filed under depression, Diagnosis, Doctors, prescription drugs by on Aug 17th, 2011. Comment.