An Iowa nursing home threw away these unused aripiprazole pills, which are used to treat psychiatric conditions. The nonprofit SafeNetRx recovered them and will donate them to a needy patient.
Credit: Rachel Mummey/ProPublica
Every week in Des Moines, Iowa, the employees of a small nonprofit collect bins of unexpired prescription drugs tossed out by nursing homes after residents died, moved out or no longer needed them. The drugs are given to patients who couldn’t otherwise afford them.
But travel 1,000 miles east to Long Island, New York, and you’ll find nursing homes flushing similar leftover drugs down the toilet, alarming state environmental regulators worried they’ll further contaminate the water supply.
In Baltimore, Maryland, a massive incinerator burns up tons of the drugs each year — for a fee — from nursing homes across the Eastern seaboard.
If you want to know why the nation’s health care costs are among the highest in the world, a good place to start is with what we throw away. Across the country, nursing homes routinely toss large quantities of perfectly good prescription […]
Pharma is definitely the biggest baddest cartel which directly harms the most people on the planet.
We need to avoid pharmaceuticals as much as possible because many of them are so toxic that the damage from side effects often exceeds the benefits of taking them.
If you are taking more than 10 pills a day it really means that your doctor is slowly killing you.
may I add as a Biologist… from Germany.. this is a Global phenomenon. It starts with the question, what is really the valid expiration date… It certainly is NOT the very Day indiacted on the label… so when?
It is the Initiative of the current user to give surplus to those in need.
It certainly does not require any new government interference, which creates those problems first.
The other point is , what can I do to minimize the requirement of any health care, medicine, drugs, etc.
The better I take care of myself, the less outside help I need.
The question then is, what is the real quality of any outside Help?
is that really helpful?
or do I get dependent on outside help, which will do me more damage in the long run – and certainly no help at all.
It is a complex phenomenon and it starts her, now, with me and my own responsibility.
I prefer dying alone without any help rather than to succumb to that system…
sorry , my bad experience…
Pharmaceuticals reach the environment though wastewater treatment plants from medications that have been excreted by people as well as discarded medications. The affect of blood pressure medication, hormones, prozac and other meds of fish and wildlife have not been evaluated.