[Pharmwaste] FW: appropriate disposal of expired drugs

[Gilliam, Allen]

Astute observation Dr. Gressitt, but "prevention" is obviously not a
word currently found in the manufacturers' dictionary.  Do we have any
information from the "sources" they are looking into P2 in their
formulation practices?  Or, is it going to be business as usual, "one
size fits all"?  "Expiration dates with a safety factor of 300%"?

Seems I heard from one of the attendees at the PSI conference the
manufacturers were at least sitting at the same table. 

[side note I'm sure most of you have seen...]
"Drug Ads Sell a Problem, Not a Solution"

>From the Christian Science Monitor:
It is an old saying in the advertising trade that you sell the problem,
not the solution. That helps explain why the media today are awash with
images of disease. Erectile dysfunction, depression, stress, attention
deficit disorder, and on and on - you can't escape them & the sense of
looming peril that they conjure up.

"We're increasingly turning normal people into patients," said Dr. Lisa
Schwartz of the Dartmouth Med School. "The ordinary experiences of life
become a diagnosis, which makes healthy people feel like they're sick."

Advertising is the most pervasive and aggressive way of selling
sickness.  Seems there's a new medication advertised at least monthly.  

If they can come up with all these "designer drugs", they could put more
design into their current practices for increasing the metabolic rates
or sizing their prescriptions for the approx. weight of the users.  

What's the latest curve look like regarding prescriptions?  Is it beyond
an exponential increase and is an asymptote now over the last decade?

Allen Gilliam
ADEQ State Pretreatment type guy

-----Original Message-----
From: pharmwaste-bounces at lists.dep.state.fl.us
[mailto:pharmwaste-bounces at lists.dep.state.fl.us] On Behalf Of
gressitt at uninets.net
Sent: Tuesday, October 07, 2008 9:47 AM
To: zimme053 at umn.edu
Cc: Charlotte A. Smith; apittman at hcnetwork.org; Tenace, Laurie;
pharmwaste at lists.dep.state.fl.us
Subject: RE: [Pharmwaste] FW: appropriate disposal of expired drugs

The prevention is what is key. Seems to be a harder discussion to have
with some people than the disposal even. Stevan Gressitt, M.D.

> Hi Laurie, Charlotte and all,
> In MN, the MN Pollution Control Agency, who writes the permits for 
> wastewater treatment plants (aka POTW) , advised all the plants to not

> accept pharmaceuticals. Because most pharmaceuticals pass through the 
> plant directly into surface waters, by accepting them, the POTW could 
> be violating the terms of their permits.
>
> For management, they have a few options: manage as hazardous waste 
> (most compliant), manage as medical waste and send to incinerator, 
> manage as solid waste (if they have an incinerator) or take to a Very 
> Small Quantity Generator collection or household HW collection site I 
> know they are not generally wanted there, but when the option is 
> sewer.....?
>
> Again, of course, the best option is to not generate the waste 
> pharmaceuticals in the first place, and I think we need to continue to

> plant the seed and keep beating that drum.