A thought, a question, an idea for you to steal....

[go_team]

There needs to be a better way to dispose of medicines (prescription and over-the-counter) than flushing them down the toilet or throwing them in the trash. I think this every time I find some expired cough syrup in the medicine cabinet, or when I hear about another one of those studies where somebody found trace amounts of antidepressants and birth control hormones in some municipal water supply, which is freaky and scary and sad. I know some of it is the drugs that people don't process and pass out in their sweat and urine and whatever, but drugs that get thrown out can't be helping, either. Oh, and in case you'd forgotten, even for a second: antibiotic resistance. That's some bad stuff, mmkay? So yeah. Pharmaceutical pollution. It freaks me out, and I don't even know where to begin dealing with the problem except to ask all my awesome and brilliant friends and readers about it. Go Team!

Comments

[dragonmudd.livejournal.com]

That's why it's so important to finish your antibiotic regimen! :) If a patient uses all of the antibiotic (like they're supposed to), there won't be any to throw away.

Because of my Mitral Valve Prolapse I have been instructed to always take antibiotics before any dental procedures. Prior to my last appointment, I instructed the office to get me a prescription and they did. The prescription I received was to just take four pills an hour before the procedure and that's it (I'm not even totally convinced that there's any good reason for this, and some day I might actually question a professional about it)... but the container had about twenty pills in it. I imagine that mistakes like this happen, so it's not always the consumer's fault.