If you think your prescription medication is pure and untainted, think again. I was at my pharmacy the other day picking up a prescription for myself and my wife. My hay fever had really been getting to me, so I thought I’d pick up some Sudafed, or
Pseudoephedrine HCL. I went over to grab a box and – no box. Instead, there was a card that I had to take to the pharmacist because this was now kept in the back.
After I gave them two forms of identification, I had my Pseudoephedrine HCL. It turns out that Pseudoephedrine HCL is used as an ingredient to make methamphetamine, and is now tightly controlled by the pharmacies. I got to thinking, if a pharmacy is so tight on Pseudoephedrine HCL, the prescription medications it’s doling out must be super safe.
What I found was that this assumption was not only wrong, it was astounding. It turns out that the prescription medications I have been taking to get or keep me well may be making me as sick as the illness it treats.
The Pharmaceutical Chain
I assumed the following:
• Pharmaceutical companies manufacture medications.
• These medications are shipped to pharmacies through regulated distribution.
• Tightly controlled distribution ensures quality and prevents adulteration.
There is actually an estimated 400 – 6,000 wholesalers who act as the middlemen, buying and selling medications as arbitrage. Stockpiling of drugs to reduce supply may occur and it can drive up prices. These medications may be released when prices escalate with little or no regard for safe storage or expiration dates to protect the consumer.
In some cases, fraudulent medications are repackaged and resold as manufacturer items. Some expire and are repackaged with new expiration dates. There have been reported instances where medications whose potency and effectiveness are affected by the elements have not been properly stored. When this adulteration occurs, the chemical components can break down render the drugs ineffective at best, and potentially harmful in a worst case scenario.
The proliferation of this secondary market that buys and sells for profit with little regard to the integrity of the medications has given rise to what is called the ‘diversion market”, and, as was concluded in the First Interim Report of the Seventeenth Statewide Grand Jury (Florida Case SC02-2645) in February, 2003, the movement of drugs "up, down and sideways through the distribution system… creates opportunities for adulterated drugs that have been diverted from other sources to enter the system".
What does this mean? It means that all those spam emails you receive for Viagra, Cialis, etc… you know, those medications you would never buy from an unreliable source – may be showing up in your prescription medications!
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Article comments
1 - gette
And when you consider how drugs are railroaded through the FDA approval process...!
2 - sam
The reason pharmacies must now keep all pseudophedrine products behind their counters is federal legislation, it has nothing to do with pharmaceutical companies. The way you wrote your post, you make it sound as though these companies have control over pharmacies. Other than supplying drugs, they have absolutely no control in how things are stored or dealt out.
3 - Rick Vassar
This article does not have to do with either the pharmaceutical manufacturers or the pharmacies.
It's the lack of control and oversight as to where this drugs are bought and sold by wholesalers. Blurring the lines in the chain of custody allows for spoilage and adulteration to occur.
4 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
Jack,
When dealing with the Sabbath and what may or may not be done, cutting pills apart (I have to split one of the pills I take) is considered "cutting vegetables or herbs" and therefore permitted.
I make this point not to bore you all about the rules of the Jewish Sabbath, but to drive home the point that most, if not all, "medicines" are concentrated versions of herbs.
Foxglove (digitalis) was used centuries ago to ease heart pain, for example.
All of us need to know what the hell we are ingesting. Just because some guy with an M.D. on his wall says "take this" does not mean we should just go along. Just because some Madison Avenue putz hustles Bromo-Seltzer for heartburn does not mean we should would the stuff down. Bromides can be addictive.
There are teas and infusions that can help with things like hay fever, Rick, that are a lot healthier than pseudoepinephrine, which raises your blood pressure, among other things.
This is a well written article. But I suggest that a diet heavy in water, uncooked fruits and veggies and light in meat is a lot healthier than whatever is the common diet in America these days.
Now to take my own advice...
"Sweetheart? Can you please pour me a glass of water?"