Showing posts with label FDA. Show all posts
Showing posts with label FDA. Show all posts

Sunday, September 04, 2016

Multidrug Resistant Cells - the Achilles Heel of Modern Medicine





Destroy the multidrug resistant disease before it destroys us.

Today, after all our years of medical advancement and our treatment with pharmaceutical wonder drugs, disease after disease attacks us because of multidrug resistant cells forming in our bodies.

Ironically, the cause of this evolution of drug resistant cells was our excessive use of various prescription drugs given to us by our own health providers.  Of course, the drugs received approval from the Food and Drug Administration, FDA, who knew better and did nothing for years.

Multidrug resistant cells evolved from our greed to pump more and more medicine into the patients.  The next trend was to create prescription medication needed for life by the patient, thus guaranteeing more cash flow for the doctor, dentist, hospital, clinic, health diagnostic centers, drug companies, and insurance companies.


When humans started dying from overdoses and then from multidrug resistant diseases, the moneychangers shifted tactics and started prescribing the same antibiotics for animals when kept in confined quarters.  Well that included cows, chickens, and pigs.


Today more antibiotics sell for animal feed than to treat humans.  However, the saturation of animals with antibiotics has now made animals a greater source of the dangerous antibiotics entering the human body, than treatment from our doctors.

These are recent headlines.


Multidrug-resistant Shigellosis Spreading in the United States

Indian Woman Being Treated in U.S. for Drug-Resistant Tuberculosis

Outbreak of drug-resistant infection could kill 80,000 in UK, report warns

Understanding CRE, the 'nightmare' superbug that contributed to 2 deaths in L.A.

Nations Failing to Combat 'Global Threat' of Antibiotic-Resistant Superbugs: WHO

Dr. Keiji Fukuda, WHO's assistant director-general for health security. "All types of microbes—including many viruses and parasites—are becoming resistant to medicines. Of particularly urgent concern is the development of bacteria that are progressively less treatable by available antibiotics. This is happening in all parts of the world, so all countries must do their part to tackle this global threat."


These are some of the multidrug resistant diseases now in circulation.

The Original Superbug: Staphylococcus Aureus - MRSA

Almost everyone's heard of MRSA, or methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, yet few people understand just how pervasive the original superbug has become.

Roughly one in 50 people carries a strain of staph resistant to common antibiotics, according to the National Institutes of Health. If the bug invades a wound, it can cause an infection that is minor and localized, as in a pimple, or serious and widespread, involving the heart, lungs, blood and bones.

"MRSA continues to be the biggest threat because it could become more widespread," said Dr. William Schaffner, chair of prevention at Vanderbilt University Medical Center.
MRSA infections usually strike elderly hospital inpatients or nursing home residents. But the number of MRSA cases out in the community is on the rise, according to the NIH.  The disease spreads between people working out at the gym through contaminated towels or equipment, and passed between children at day care facilities.


Most forms of cancer

Ebola

Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) The human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) causes HIV infection and the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS)

Flu (Influenza)

Malaria

Meningitis

Pneumonia

Sexually Transmitted Diseases in Women (STDs)

Gonorrhea and Chlamydia

Tuberculosis (TB)

Diarrhea

The Food Borne Bugs: Escherichia Coli and Salmonella

-------------------------------------

Micrograph of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus
(MRSA, brown) surrounded by cellular debris

Antimicrobial resistance: A growing health issue

The emergence of drug-resistant microbes is not new or unexpected. Both natural causes and societal pressures drive bacteria, viruses, parasites, and other microbes to continually change in an effort to evade the drugs developed to kill them.

Natural causes

Like all organisms, microbes undergo random genetic mutations, and these changes can enhance drug resistance. Resistance to a drug arising by chance in just a few organisms can quickly spread through rapid reproduction to entire populations of a microbe.

Societal pressures

Antimicrobial resistance is fostered by the overuse and misuse of antimicrobial drugs in people as well as animals; a lack of diagnostic tests to rapidly identify infectious agents; and poor hand hygiene and infection control in healthcare and community settings.

Together, these forces contribute to the problem of drug-resistant infections that are increasingly difficult and costly to treat. 


Methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus (MRSA)

Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) bacteria, increasingly seen not only in hospitals and healthcare settings (hospital acquired or HA-MRSA) but also in the wider community, especially among people in close contact such as athletes (community associated or CA-MRSA).

Vancomycin-resistant enterococci (VRE)

Vancomycin-resistant Enterococci (VRE) bacteria are resistant to vancomycin, an antibiotic regarded as a drug of last resort.

Microbes increasingly resistant to drugs

SOURCE: National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health. Antimicrobial (Drug) Resistance.

---------------------------------


So why am I trying to upset you about the dangers in your life?  Two reasons drive me.  First, you need to be aware of how your respected institutions have poisoned you, maybe not intentionally, but the result is just as fatal.

Second, there are innovative projects underway across the nation to address the dangerous multi-drug resistant cells using a natural herb, stefania de cantis, first used by the Chinese thousands of years ago.


Just as important, researchers at a health clinic in Texas and at the Massachusetts General Hospital have recently announced results using a Chinese herbal compound to stop Ebola, and experiments are underway in other labs as well.  American patients and the medical world need to know the compound is in capsule form and seems to have been effective in treating many multi-drug resistant diseases.

If, in fact, the runaway multi-drug resistant diseases have become the Super Diseases of the 21st century, we must arm our medical community with the most effective tools possible to save lives in spite of the mutation capability of the disease.

Wednesday, May 04, 2016

Are prescription drugs destroying America? Why is the government protecting the legal drug dealers? Is anybody listening? Does anybody care?

.


America's Collective National Trip - Legal Prescription Drugs
Is Prince the latest victom?

Perhaps the fallout of the Germanwings A320 airplane crash in France caused by a depressed and psychotic co-pilot on prescription drugs should be a wake up call to America.  You are not safe in society now that 70% of Americans are on prescription drugs.

Over the years, I have closely followed the relationship between "isolated" cases of extreme violence and prescription drugs, and more often than not, the perpetrator of the crime was on some type of prescription drug, just like the pilot who killed 150 people.

From mass murders in schools to suicide airplane crashes, the world has gone crazy and we need to know the role prescription drugs are playing in this nightmare.

It was forty-five years ago when then Vice President Spiro Agnew declared that America was on a collective national trip because of the increasing abuse of prescription drugs along with the use of illegal drugs.


Jun 17, 1971

Nixon Begins War on Drugs

President Richard Nixon coins the phrase, "War on Drugs," promising in a major speech to defeat "public enemy number one in the United States.  If we cannot destroy the drug menace, then it will destroy us."

That was forty-four years ago that America launched a war on drugs, both illegal drugs, and the pre-occupation of Americans with legal prescription drugs.

Drug statistics, conveniently, it may seem, run about five years behind in reporting.
     
Prescription drug use
Percent of persons using at least one prescription drug in the past 30 days: 48.5% (2007-2010)
Percent of persons using three or more prescription drugs in the past 30 days: 21.7% (2007-2010)
Percent of persons using five or more prescription drugs in the past 30 days: 10.6% (2007-2010)

Physician office visits
Number of drugs ordered or provided: 2.6 billion
Percent of visits involving drug therapy: 75.1%
Most frequently prescribed therapeutic classes:
Analgesics
Antihyperlipidemic agents
Antidepressants


Hospital outpatient department visits
Number of drugs ordered or provided: 285.1 million
Percent of visits involving drug therapy: 74.4%
Most frequently prescribed therapeutic classes
Analgesics
Antidiabetic agents
Antihyperlipidemic agents

Hospital emergency department visits
Number of drugs ordered or provided: 286.2 million
Percent of visits involving drug therapy: 80.3%
Most frequently prescribed therapeutic classes
analgesics
Antiemetic or antivertigo agents
Minerals and electrolytes


The report -- titled "Health, United States 2013" -- found the percentage of Americans taking prescription drugs has increased dramatically.  During the most recent period, from 2007 to 2010, about 48% of people said they were taking prescription medication, compared with 39% in 1988 to 1994.

Prescription drug use increased with age. About one in four children took one or more prescription drugs in the past month, compared to nine in 10 adults 65 and older, according to the study.

"This is really not earth-shattering news. There's an increasing number of people with chronic illnesses, and the primary management tool available for dealing with chronic illness is medication," said William Lang, vice president of policy and advocacy for the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy.



One in 10 Americans said he or she had taken five or more prescription drugs in the previous month. That raises concerns about potential drug interactions, said Anne Burns, senior vice president for professional affairs at the American Pharmacists Association.

"We know that the number of adverse drug events a patient is likely to experience increases as the number of medications they are taking increases," Burns said. "You've got everything from potential interactions between medications to timing issues taking a variety of medications throughout the day."


People who took five or more drugs in the past month tended to be older. Only 10.8 percent of people taking that many drugs were between 18 and 44, while 41.7 percent were between 45 and 64 and 47.5 percent were 65 and older.

Drugs to manage cholesterol, high blood pressure, heart disease and kidney disease are the most widely used medications among adults, the CDC report found.

In particular, the use of cholesterol-lowering drugs among people 18 to 64 has increased more than six-fold since 1988-1994, due in part to the increased use of statins.  Also, nearly 18 percent of adults 18 to 64 took at least one cardiovascular drug during the past month.


The CDC report noted some headway in efforts to combat the development of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Prescriptions of antibiotics for cold symptoms during routine medical visits declined 39 percent between 1995-1996 and 2009-2010.

But the report also found a tripling of overdose deaths due to prescription narcotics. Painkillers taken among people 15 and older caused 6.6 deaths for every 100,000 people in 2009-2010, compared with 1.9 deaths per 100,000 in 1999-2000.

There has been a fourfold increase in antidepressant use among adults, but Holmes said that's not necessarily a bad thing.


Seeking help for a mental health disorder isn't as stigmatized as it once was, she noted. In addition, companies have introduced more effective antidepressants, and researchers have found that antidepressants also can be used to treat panic and anxiety disorders.

"If antidepressants enable people to function fully in their social roles, that's a good thing," Holmes said.

All that said, prescription drug use has spiraled out of control since 2010 as health officials now say antibiotics, antidepressants, and opioids are used by seven out of ten people.  

Drug overdose death rates have never been higher. In the United States alone, 100 people die from drug overdoses every day, most of them caused by prescription drugs. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has officially declared prescription drug abuse in the US an epidemic.


Antibiotics -

Number one on the list of prescribed drugs, we continue to be subject to levels of antibiotics far in excess of our needs, and the shift of antibiotics to animal feed from human treatment assures our contamination for years to come, even if we stop taking antibiotics for a toothache, and for many other reasons.

It is also important to note that antibiotics are frequently used in settings where they will not provide any benefits. An example of this sort of inappropriate use of antibiotics is for viral infections, such as the common cold. In fact, there is a tendency for patients to believe that if they are ill with an "infection", an antibiotic is the solution. Well, it's not always.

As recently reported in the news, For The Love Of Pork: Antibiotic Use On Farms Skyrockets Worldwide.
   

The love of meat is exploding in Asia, and with it, comes antibiotic consumption by chickens (top) and pigs (bottom). Green represents low levels of drug used; yellow and orange are medium levels; and red and magenta are high levels.

Pig farmers around the world, on average, use nearly four times as much antibiotics as cattle ranchers do, per pound of meat. Poultry farmers fall somewhere between the two.

That's one of the conclusions of a study published Thursday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. It's the first look at the amount of antibiotics used on farms around the world — and how fast consumption is growing.

The numbers reported are eye-opening.  In 2010, the world used about 63,000 tons of antibiotics each year to raise cows, chickens and pigs, the study estimated. That's roughly twice as much as the antibiotics prescribed by doctors globally to fight infections in people.

"We have huge amounts of antibiotic use in the animal sector around the world, and it's set to take off in a major way in the next two decades," says the study's senior author, Ramanan Laxminarayan, who directs the Center for Disease Dynamics Economics & Policy in Washington, D.C.

In all cases, since we know the over-use of antibiotics increases drug resistance in cells in our bodies, which make us susceptible to many new mutant, drug-resistant bacteria and virus's such as staff infections and others.  It may also be a contribution factor to increases in well known diseases like cancer.


Antidepressants - Feel Good Medicine

Antidepressants Aren't Taken By The Depressed; Majority Of Users Have No Disorder

Depression’s increase in the U.S. has been persisting for years, and it’s going on decades. And while the increase in antidepressant use has followed a predictably similar path, not all cases can be explained by the parallel rise in disease. Many people, in fact, take antidepressants regardless of a diagnosis.


A new study published in The Journal of Clinical Psychiatry reports some 69 percent of people taking selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), the primary type of antidepressants, have never suffered from major depressive disorder (MDD). Perhaps worse, 38 percent have never in their lifetime met the criteria for MDD, obsessive compulsive disorder, panic disorder, social phobia, or generalized anxiety disorder, yet still take the pills that accompany them.

In a society that is increasingly self-medicating itself, capsules, tablets, and pills are turning from last resorts to easily obtained quick fixes. Between 1988 and 2008, antidepressant use increased nearly 400 percent. Today, 11 percent of the American population takes a regular antidepressant, which, by the latest study’s measure, may be a severe inflation of what’s actually necessary.


Opioids - Pain Killers
Although many types of prescription drugs are abused, prescription opioids take the lead. Chronic pain is frequently treated with prescription opioids, the clinical use of which nearly doubled from 2000 to 2010. This increase was accompanied by a rise in opioid abuse; it’s estimated that over two million people in the US currently abuse prescription opioids. Nearly 75% of prescription drug overdoses are caused by prescription opioid painkillers; these drugs are involved in more deaths than cocaine and heroin combined. In 2010, pharmaceutical drug overdoses were established as one of the leading causes of death in the US; drug overdoses were more lethal than firearms or motor vehicle accidents.


If you take any of the following you could be subject to drug abuse.

Opioids include:
Fentanyl (Duragesic®)
Hydrocodone (Vicodin®)
Oxycodone (OxyContin®)
Oxymorphone (Opana®)
Propoxyphene (Darvon®)
Hydromorphone (Dilaudid®)
Meperidine (Demerol®)
Diphenoxylate (Lomotil®)

Central nervous system depressants include:
Pentobarbital sodium (Nembutal®)
Diazepam (Valium®)
Alprazolam (Xanax®)

Stimulants include:
Dextroamphetamine (Dexedrine®)
Methylphenidate (Ritalin® and Concerta®)
Amphetamines (Adderall®)


The Most Popular Drug in America is an Antipsychotic—and No One Really Knows How it Works

The Raw Story – November 16, 2014

By Martha Rosenberg

Does anyone remember Thorazine? It was an antipsychotic given to mentally ill people, often in institutions, that was so sedating, it gave rise to the term “Thorazine shuffle.” Ads for Thorazine in medical journals, before drugs were advertised directly to patients, showed Aunt Hattie in a hospital gown, zoned out but causing no trouble to herself or anyone else. No wonder Thorazine and related drugs Haldol, Mellaril and Stelazine were called chemical straitjackets.

But Thorazine and similar drugs became close to obsolete in 1993 when a second generation of antipsychotics which included RisperdalZyprexaSeroquelGeodon and Abilify came online. Called “atypical” antipsychotics, the drugs seemed to have fewer side effects than their predecessors like dry mouth, constipation and the stigmatizing and permanent facial tics known as TD or tardive dyskinesia. (In actuality, they were similar.) More importantly, the drugs were obscenely expensive: 100 tablets of Seroquel cost as much as $2,000, Zyprexa, $1,680 and Abilify $1,644.


One drug that is a close cousin of Thorazine, Abilify, is currently the top-selling of all prescription drugs in the U.S. marketed as a supplement to antidepressant drugs, reports the Daily Beast. Not only is it amazing that an antipsychotic is outselling all other drugs, no one even knows how it works to relieve depression, writes Jay Michaelson. The standardized United States Product Insert says Abilify’s method of action is “unknown” but it likely “balances” brain’s neurotransmitters. But critics say antipsychotics don’t treat anything at all, but zone people out and produce oblivion. They also say there is a concerning rise in the prescription of antipsychotics for routine complaints like insomnia.

They are right. With new names and prices and despite their unknown methods of action, Pharma marketers have devised ways to market drugs like Abilify to the whole population, not just people with severe mental illness. Only one percent of the population, after all, has schizophrenia and only 2.5 percent has bipolar disorder. Thanks to these marketing ploys, Risperdal was the seventh best-selling drug in the world until it went off patent and Abilify currently rules.


More manipulations

Just as Big Pharma has camped out in Medicare and Medicaid, living on our tax dollars while fleeing to England to avoid taxes, Pharma has also camped out in the Department of Defense and Veterans Affairs.

Arguably, no drugs have been as good for Big Pharma as atypical antipsychotics within the military. In 2009, the Pentagon spent $8.6 million on Seroquel and VA spent $125.4 million—almost $30 million more than is spent on a F/A-18 Hornet.


Risperdal was even bigger in the military. Over a period of nine years, VA spent $717 million on its generic, risperidone, to treat PTSD in troops in Afghanistan and Iraq. Yet not only was risperidone not approved for PTSD, it didn’t even work. A 2011 study in the Journal of the American Medical Association found the drug worked no better than placebo and the money was totally wasted.
.

Monday, August 31, 2015

Multidrug Resistant Cells - the Achilles Heel of Modern Medicine

.



Destroy the multidrug resistant disease before it destroys us.

Today, after all our years of medical advancement and our treatment with pharmaceutical wonder drugs, disease after disease attacks us because of multidrug resistant cells forming in our bodies.

Ironically, the cause of this evolution of drug resistant cells was our excessive use of various prescription drugs given to us by our own health providers.  Of course, the drugs received approval from the Food and Drug Administration, FDA, who knew better and did nothing for years.

Multidrug resistant cells evolved from our greed to pump more and more medicine into the patients.  The next trend was to create prescription medication needed for life by the patient, thus guaranteeing more cash flow for the doctor, dentist, hospital, clinic, health diagnostic centers, drug companies, and insurance companies.


When humans started dying from overdoses and then from multidrug resistant diseases, the moneychangers shifted tactics and started prescribing the same antibiotics for animals when kept in confined quarters.  Well that included cows, chickens, and pigs.


Today more antibiotics sell for animal feed than to treat humans.  However, the saturation of animals with antibiotics has now made animals a greater source of the dangerous antibiotics entering the human body, than treatment from our doctors.

These are recent headlines this year.


Multidrug-resistant Shigellosis Spreading in the United States

Indian Woman Being Treated in U.S. for Drug-Resistant Tuberculosis

Outbreak of drug-resistant infection could kill 80,000 in UK, report warns

Understanding CRE, the 'nightmare' superbug that contributed to 2 deaths in L.A.

Nations Failing to Combat 'Global Threat' of Antibiotic-Resistant Superbugs: WHO

Dr. Keiji Fukuda, WHO's assistant director-general for health security. "All types of microbes—including many viruses and parasites—are becoming resistant to medicines. Of particularly urgent concern is the development of bacteria that are progressively less treatable by available antibiotics. This is happening in all parts of the world, so all countries must do their part to tackle this global threat."


These are some of the multidrug resistant diseases now in circulation.

The Original Superbug: Staphylococcus Aureus - MRSA

Almost everyone's heard of MRSA, or methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, yet few people understand just how pervasive the original superbug has become.

Roughly one in 50 people carries a strain of staph resistant to common antibiotics, according to the National Institutes of Health. If the bug invades a wound, it can cause an infection that is minor and localized, as in a pimple, or serious and widespread, involving the heart, lungs, blood and bones.

"MRSA continues to be the biggest threat because it could become more widespread," said Dr. William Schaffner, chair of prevention at Vanderbilt University Medical Center.
MRSA infections usually strike elderly hospital inpatients or nursing home residents. But the number of MRSA cases out in the community is on the rise, according to the NIH.  The disease spreads between people working out at the gym through contaminated towels or equipment, and passed between children at day care facilities.


Most forms of cancer

Ebola

Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) The human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) causes HIV infection and the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS)

Flu (Influenza)

Malaria

Meningitis

Pneumonia

Sexually Transmitted Diseases in Women (STDs)

Gonorrhea and Chlamydia

Tuberculosis (TB)

Diarrhea

The Food Borne Bugs: Escherichia Coli and Salmonella

-------------------------------------

Micrograph of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus
(MRSA, brown) surrounded by cellular debris

Antimicrobial resistance: A growing health issue

The emergence of drug-resistant microbes is not new or unexpected. Both natural causes and societal pressures drive bacteria, viruses, parasites, and other microbes to continually change in an effort to evade the drugs developed to kill them.

Natural causes

Like all organisms, microbes undergo random genetic mutations, and these changes can enhance drug resistance. Resistance to a drug arising by chance in just a few organisms can quickly spread through rapid reproduction to entire populations of a microbe.

Societal pressures

Antimicrobial resistance is fostered by the overuse and misuse of antimicrobial drugs in people as well as animals; a lack of diagnostic tests to rapidly identify infectious agents; and poor hand hygiene and infection control in healthcare and community settings.

Together, these forces contribute to the problem of drug-resistant infections that are increasingly difficult and costly to treat. 


Methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus (MRSA)

Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) bacteria, increasingly seen not only in hospitals and healthcare settings (hospital acquired or HA-MRSA) but also in the wider community, especially among people in close contact such as athletes (community associated or CA-MRSA).

Vancomycin-resistant enterococci (VRE)

Vancomycin-resistant Enterococci (VRE) bacteria are resistant to vancomycin, an antibiotic regarded as a drug of last resort.

Microbes increasingly resistant to drugs

SOURCE: National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health. Antimicrobial (Drug) Resistance.

---------------------------------


So why am I trying to upset you about the dangers in your life?  Two reasons drive me.  First, you need to be aware of how your respected institutions have poisoned you, maybe not intentionally, but the result is just as fatal.

Second, there are innovative projects underway across the nation to address the dangerous multi-drug resistant cells using natural herbs first used by the Chinese thousands of years ago.


Just as important, researchers at a health clinic in Texas and at the Massachusetts General Hospital have recently announced results using a Chinese herbal compound to stop Ebola, and experiments are underway in other labs as well.  American patients and the medical world need to know the compound is in capsule form and seems to have been effective in treating many multi-drug resistant diseases.

If, in fact, the runaway multi-drug resistant diseases have become the Super Diseases of the 21st century, we must arm our medical community with the most effective tools possible to save lives in spite of the mutation capability of the disease.

Thursday, April 09, 2015

Are prescription drugs destroying America? Why is the government protecting the legal drug dealers? Is anybody listening? Does anybody care?

.


America's Collective National Trip - Legal Prescription Drugs

Perhaps the fallout of the Germanwings A320 airplane crash in France caused by a depressed and psychotic co-pilot on prescription drugs should be a wake up call to America.  You are not safe in society now that 70% of Americans are on prescription drugs.

Over the years, I have closely followed the relationship between "isolated" cases of extreme violence and prescription drugs, and more often than not, the perpetrator of the crime was on some type of prescription drug, just like the pilot who killed 150 people.

From mass murders in schools to suicide airplane crashes, the world has gone crazy and we need to know the role prescription drugs are playing in this nightmare.

It was forty-five years ago when then Vice President Spiro Agnew declared that America was on a collective national trip because of the increasing abuse of prescription drugs along with the use of illegal drugs.


Jun 17, 1971

Nixon Begins War on Drugs

President Richard Nixon coins the phrase, "War on Drugs," promising in a major speech to defeat "public enemy number one in the United States.  If we cannot destroy the drug menace, then it will destroy us."

That was forty-four years ago that America launched a war on drugs, both illegal drugs, and the pre-occupation of Americans with legal prescription drugs.

Drug statistics, conveniently, it may seem, run about five years behind in reporting.
     
 
Prescription drug use
Percent of persons using at least one prescription drug in the past 30 days: 48.5% (2007-2010)
Percent of persons using three or more prescription drugs in the past 30 days: 21.7% (2007-2010)
Percent of persons using five or more prescription drugs in the past 30 days: 10.6% (2007-2010)

Physician office visits
Number of drugs ordered or provided: 2.6 billion
Percent of visits involving drug therapy: 75.1%
Most frequently prescribed therapeutic classes:
Analgesics
Antihyperlipidemic agents
Antidepressants


Hospital outpatient department visits
Number of drugs ordered or provided: 285.1 million
Percent of visits involving drug therapy: 74.4%
Most frequently prescribed therapeutic classes
Analgesics
Antidiabetic agents
Antihyperlipidemic agents

Hospital emergency department visits
Number of drugs ordered or provided: 286.2 million
Percent of visits involving drug therapy: 80.3%
Most frequently prescribed therapeutic classes
analgesics
Antiemetic or antivertigo agents
Minerals and electrolytes


The report -- titled "Health, United States 2013" -- found the percentage of Americans taking prescription drugs has increased dramatically.  During the most recent period, from 2007 to 2010, about 48% of people said they were taking prescription medication, compared with 39% in 1988 to 1994.

Prescription drug use increased with age. About one in four children took one or more prescription drugs in the past month, compared to nine in 10 adults 65 and older, according to the study.

"This is really not earth-shattering news. There's an increasing number of people with chronic illnesses, and the primary management tool available for dealing with chronic illness is medication," said William Lang, vice president of policy and advocacy for the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy.



One in 10 Americans said he or she had taken five or more prescription drugs in the previous month. That raises concerns about potential drug interactions, said Anne Burns, senior vice president for professional affairs at the American Pharmacists Association.

"We know that the number of adverse drug events a patient is likely to experience increases as the number of medications they are taking increases," Burns said. "You've got everything from potential interactions between medications to timing issues taking a variety of medications throughout the day."


People who took five or more drugs in the past month tended to be older. Only 10.8 percent of people taking that many drugs were between 18 and 44, while 41.7 percent were between 45 and 64 and 47.5 percent were 65 and older.

Drugs to manage cholesterol, high blood pressure, heart disease and kidney disease are the most widely used medications among adults, the CDC report found.

In particular, the use of cholesterol-lowering drugs among people 18 to 64 has increased more than six-fold since 1988-1994, due in part to the increased use of statins.  Also, nearly 18 percent of adults 18 to 64 took at least one cardiovascular drug during the past month.


The CDC report noted some headway in efforts to combat the development of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Prescriptions of antibiotics for cold symptoms during routine medical visits declined 39 percent between 1995-1996 and 2009-2010.

But the report also found a tripling of overdose deaths due to prescription narcotics. Painkillers taken among people 15 and older caused 6.6 deaths for every 100,000 people in 2009-2010, compared with 1.9 deaths per 100,000 in 1999-2000.

There has been a fourfold increase in antidepressant use among adults, but Holmes said that's not necessarily a bad thing.


Seeking help for a mental health disorder isn't as stigmatized as it once was, she noted. In addition, companies have introduced more effective antidepressants, and researchers have found that antidepressants also can be used to treat panic and anxiety disorders.

"If antidepressants enable people to function fully in their social roles, that's a good thing," Holmes said.

All that said, prescription drug use has spiraled out of control since 2010 as health officials now say antibiotics, antidepressants, and opioids are used by seven out of ten people.  

Drug overdose death rates have never been higher. In the United States alone, 100 people die from drug overdoses every day, most of them caused by prescription drugs. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has officially declared prescription drug abuse in the US an epidemic.


Antibiotics -

Number one on the list of prescribed drugs, we continue to be subject to levels of antibiotics far in excess of our needs, and the shift of antibiotics to animal feed from human treatment assures our contamination for years to come, even if we stop taking antibiotics for a toothache, and for many other reasons.

It is also important to note that antibiotics are frequently used in settings where they will not provide any benefits. An example of this sort of inappropriate use of antibiotics is for viral infections, such as the common cold. In fact, there is a tendency for patients to believe that if they are ill with an "infection", an antibiotic is the solution. Well, it's not always.

As recently reported in the news, For The Love Of Pork: Antibiotic Use On Farms Skyrockets Worldwide.
   

The love of meat is exploding in Asia, and with it, comes antibiotic consumption by chickens (top) and pigs (bottom). Green represents low levels of drug used; yellow and orange are medium levels; and red and magenta are high levels.

Pig farmers around the world, on average, use nearly four times as much antibiotics as cattle ranchers do, per pound of meat. Poultry farmers fall somewhere between the two.

That's one of the conclusions of a study published Thursday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. It's the first look at the amount of antibiotics used on farms around the world — and how fast consumption is growing.

The numbers reported are eye-opening.  In 2010, the world used about 63,000 tons of antibiotics each year to raise cows, chickens and pigs, the study estimated. That's roughly twice as much as the antibiotics prescribed by doctors globally to fight infections in people.

"We have huge amounts of antibiotic use in the animal sector around the world, and it's set to take off in a major way in the next two decades," says the study's senior author, Ramanan Laxminarayan, who directs the Center for Disease Dynamics Economics & Policy in Washington, D.C.

In all cases, since we know the over-use of antibiotics increases drug resistance in cells in our bodies, which make us susceptible to many new mutant, drug-resistant bacteria and virus's such as staff infections and others.  It may also be a contribution factor to increases in well known diseases like cancer.


Antidepressants - Feel Good Medicine

Antidepressants Aren't Taken By The Depressed; Majority Of Users Have No Disorder

Depression’s increase in the U.S. has been persisting for years, and it’s going on decades. And while the increase in antidepressant use has followed a predictably similar path, not all cases can be explained by the parallel rise in disease. Many people, in fact, take antidepressants regardless of a diagnosis.


A new study published in The Journal of Clinical Psychiatry reports some 69 percent of people taking selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), the primary type of antidepressants, have never suffered from major depressive disorder (MDD). Perhaps worse, 38 percent have never in their lifetime met the criteria for MDD, obsessive compulsive disorder, panic disorder, social phobia, or generalized anxiety disorder, yet still take the pills that accompany them.

In a society that is increasingly self-medicating itself, capsules, tablets, and pills are turning from last resorts to easily obtained quick fixes. Between 1988 and 2008, antidepressant use increased nearly 400 percent. Today, 11 percent of the American population takes a regular antidepressant, which, by the latest study’s measure, may be a severe inflation of what’s actually necessary.


Opioids - Pain Killers
Although many types of prescription drugs are abused, prescription opioids take the lead. Chronic pain is frequently treated with prescription opioids, the clinical use of which nearly doubled from 2000 to 2010. This increase was accompanied by a rise in opioid abuse; it’s estimated that over two million people in the US currently abuse prescription opioids. Nearly 75% of prescription drug overdoses are caused by prescription opioid painkillers; these drugs are involved in more deaths than cocaine and heroin combined. In 2010, pharmaceutical drug overdoses were established as one of the leading causes of death in the US; drug overdoses were more lethal than firearms or motor vehicle accidents.


If you take any of the following you could be subject to drug abuse.

Opioids include:
Fentanyl (Duragesic®)
Hydrocodone (Vicodin®)
Oxycodone (OxyContin®)
Oxymorphone (Opana®)
Propoxyphene (Darvon®)
Hydromorphone (Dilaudid®)
Meperidine (Demerol®)
Diphenoxylate (Lomotil®)

Central nervous system depressants include:
Pentobarbital sodium (Nembutal®)
Diazepam (Valium®)
Alprazolam (Xanax®)

Stimulants include:
Dextroamphetamine (Dexedrine®)
Methylphenidate (Ritalin® and Concerta®)
Amphetamines (Adderall®)


The Most Popular Drug in America is an Antipsychotic—and No One Really Knows How it Works

The Raw Story – November 16, 2014

By Martha Rosenberg

Does anyone remember Thorazine? It was an antipsychotic given to mentally ill people, often in institutions, that was so sedating, it gave rise to the term “Thorazine shuffle.” Ads for Thorazine in medical journals, before drugs were advertised directly to patients, showed Aunt Hattie in a hospital gown, zoned out but causing no trouble to herself or anyone else. No wonder Thorazine and related drugs Haldol, Mellaril and Stelazine were called chemical straitjackets.

But Thorazine and similar drugs became close to obsolete in 1993 when a second generation of antipsychotics which included Risperdal, Zyprexa, Seroquel, Geodon and Abilify came online. Called “atypical” antipsychotics, the drugs seemed to have fewer side effects than their predecessors like dry mouth, constipation and the stigmatizing and permanent facial tics known as TD or tardive dyskinesia. (In actuality, they were similar.) More importantly, the drugs were obscenely expensive: 100 tablets of Seroquel cost as much as $2,000, Zyprexa, $1,680 and Abilify $1,644.


One drug that is a close cousin of Thorazine, Abilify, is currently the top-selling of all prescription drugs in the U.S. marketed as a supplement to antidepressant drugs, reports the Daily Beast. Not only is it amazing that an antipsychotic is outselling all other drugs, no one even knows how it works to relieve depression, writes Jay Michaelson. The standardized United States Product Insert says Abilify’s method of action is “unknown” but it likely “balances” brain’s neurotransmitters. But critics say antipsychotics don’t treat anything at all, but zone people out and produce oblivion. They also say there is a concerning rise in the prescription of antipsychotics for routine complaints like insomnia.

They are right. With new names and prices and despite their unknown methods of action, Pharma marketers have devised ways to market drugs like Abilify to the whole population, not just people with severe mental illness. Only one percent of the population, after all, has schizophrenia and only 2.5 percent has bipolar disorder. Thanks to these marketing ploys, Risperdal was the seventh best-selling drug in the world until it went off patent and Abilify currently rules.


More manipulations

Just as Big Pharma has camped out in Medicare and Medicaid, living on our tax dollars while fleeing to England to avoid taxes, Pharma has also camped out in the Department of Defense and Veterans Affairs.

Arguably, no drugs have been as good for Big Pharma as atypical antipsychotics within the military. In 2009, the Pentagon spent $8.6 million on Seroquel and VA spent $125.4 million—almost $30 million more than is spent on a F/A-18 Hornet.


Risperdal was even bigger in the military. Over a period of nine years, VA spent $717 million on its generic, risperidone, to treat PTSD in troops in Afghanistan and Iraq. Yet not only was risperidone not approved for PTSD, it didn’t even work. A 2011 study in the Journal of the American Medical Association found the drug worked no better than placebo and the money was totally wasted.
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