Uncle Sam Barks Orders: "Feed Them Hungry Toilets!"
@AJ1952Chats (2332)
Anderson, Indiana
April 13, 2008 5:36am CST
Read this and watch the video...
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/04/11/eveningnews/main4010772.shtml?source=mostpop_story
Situation:
A person goes to a nursing home, and any, some, or all of the following thing happen:
The person gets a med change, the person leaves the nursing home, the person passes on.
This person has/had his/her own supply of prescription drugs.
Now, for whatever reason, those drugs aren't being used.
These aren't drugs that are in individual bottles or are otherwise out in the open.
These are blister-wrapped pills/capsules/caplets/gel caps or are medical products that are otherwise sealed.
They're perfectly safe and good--and could be given to other patients needing the same prescription.
Are they?
You've got to be kidding!
That's against the law!
No, those meds must be destroyed in one way or another with the most common means of doing this being to flush them down the toilet--and into the water system! And here they've been blaming everything else for water pollution!
Take one patient in one nursing home and multiply his number by every resident of said nursing home. Take that number and multiply it by the number of nursing homes throughout the country.
Now, that's a lot of wasted medicine that could be helping other people--people who are actually becoming more ill (and, often, dying) because they can't afford to pay for it.
There are people in other countries who would like to have that medicine as well, but, under current laws, it can't be donated to such places as Doctors Without Borders.
Imagine all of those blister-sealed packets of meds being opened (and you should see all of the empty blister-sealed packets generated during one of these Uncle-Sam-required rituals to realize just how many pills we're talking about!) and the pills being collected together. When enough of them are accumulated to make a trip to the restroom worth the energy, they are taken in there in dish tubs, plastic bags, and other containers and flushed away.
There are so many of them taken in there that the nurse in charge of doing this has to send them on their journey in a whole bunch of flushes or they would stop up the toilet!
My suspicion re: why it's so difficult to change this law is that it has to do with pharmaceutical lobbyists.
Why isn't the EPA onto this--the same EPA with its nanny laws that prohibit us from doing certain things because we might be causing global warming or some other kind of environmental disaster?
I'm suspecting, after watching this news story, that a significant part of our environmental problems can be blamed on all of those chemicals being sent down the toilet on a regular basis.
So, this practice is nothing less than criminal on both the waste of good medicine in a time when people dearly need medicine (and a lot of this medicine is being paid for by we the people) and the pollution to the water and related problems.
2 people like this
7 responses
@Aussies2007 (5336)
• Australia
13 Apr 08
Some things are just not simple... and that is one of them.
You cannot sale a bread which was bake yesterday.
You cannot take it to Africa either to feed those starving people. So you throw it in the bin.
You cannot fool around with medecine. You cannot just hand over surplus medication to patients. It has to be prescribe... and the dosage has to be right.
Flushing it down the toilet is not a good thing... but it prevents it from falling in the wrong hands and ending up on the black market.
@AJ1952Chats (2332)
• Anderson, Indiana
14 Apr 08
We're a very wasteful nation. We can sell day-old bread, but people must know that it's day-old bread.
Some restaurants/bakeries that promise all new things can't sell day-old items. Some of it gets thrown out--but people are getting wiser now and donating it to shelters because it's still good and appreciated.
As for the pills. these aren't pills in a bottle where they could have been handled by somebody. These are Pharmacy-fresh pills still in their bubble blisters. If they had stayed in the pharmacy, they could have safely been sold to people.
In a nursing home, why not have these packets like that and use them on people according to what their prescriptions say? They do this in hospitals. They don't issue a bunch of pills in the name of one person and the pills in the same situation as nursing home pills get used on the next patient.
If my mom stopped buying her medicine at Gene Maddy Pharmacy, I don't think that the clerks there would be required to round up all of the kinds of meds she used, pop them out of their blister packets, and flush them.
This is just a waste of perfectly-good medicine that's safely sealed in blister packs, packets, and bottles.
Think of three bottles of tonic.
Patient John Doe uses tonic on a regular basis, so it's estimated that he will go through three bottles in a month, so three bottles are bought for him.
Two days after his month's supply arrives, John Doe passes away.
The already opened bottle of tonic is poured down the toilet--nearly full.
There are the two other bottles that haven't even had their seals broken.
They are just as new as if they had been sitting on a pharmacy shelf. The seals are broken on these brand-new bottles and their contents are poured down the toilet.
We pay into this system with our tax dollars, so it's our tax dollars (in part, anyway) that are swimming off to pollute the waters.
Too bad that these pills, tonics, etc. don't convert back into cash. If they did, I would be walking along the shores of Lake Michigan waiting for them to wash up, and Russell would be out in San Diego walking along the shores of the Pacific Ocean waiting for them to wash up, and it wouldn't be long before we could feed, clothe, and house every homeless child in San Diego and a few other places!
http://www.freewebs.com/invisibleyouth/
1 person likes this
@AJ1952Chats (2332)
• Anderson, Indiana
14 Apr 08
Good for you, Yvonne! And your mom was very wise, too. Stale bread can make great bread pudding or croutons.
When people are used to eating out of trash cans, they, no doubt, appreciate getting clean food, even if it isn't the newest kid on the block.
1 person likes this
@tinker124 (52)
• United States
14 Apr 08
I agree, That we throw away way to many good items that could be used over again. Especially the day old foods and the bottles of pills that are thrown away. I have had a prescription filled and only used a few pills out of, because I couldn't tolerate the medication, I asked the pharmacy if they could use this medication and of course they said no, which this I can understand because you never know who might tamper with the medication and make it unsafe for others to use. But I do not understand how these medications, in the blister packs can be flushed down the toilet, when millions of people go with out medical.
The foods also bother me as there are shelters and food kitchens in the bigger cities that could use these foods to feed the hungry. We need someone who would see that these day old foods are given to the needy.
I have boughten foods for shelters that offer free food to the needy and have bought day old bread and helped give it out and no one ever complained about it being day old.
My mother didn't throw anything away and I learned that a lot of used things can be recycled for other things. I to, try to be thrifty and use old things for a second time, if not even more.
Good discussion! Blessings!
2 people like this
@twoey68 (13627)
• United States
14 Apr 08
I can't believe that with the high cost of medications that they are just tossing them out. If they are still sealed then there is no danger. Also, dumping them into the water source is putting ppl in general in danger...seems kind of contradictive.
**AT PEACE WITHIN**
~~STAND STRONG IN YOUR BELIEFS~~
2 people like this
@AJ1952Chats (2332)
• Anderson, Indiana
14 Apr 08
Definitely total insanity going on here, if you ask me!
MyLot isn't the only place I'm going to be sharing this story!
1 person likes this
@winterose (39887)
• Canada
14 Apr 08
you raise a very good point, but caution has to be exercised here as well, you can\t just give anybody powerful medication willy nilly, there would have to be a system set up that a doctor or qualified nurse would approve who got it just so that people don't end up dying by getting the wrong meds, or the wrong strength, etc.
2 people like this
@AJ1952Chats (2332)
• Anderson, Indiana
14 Apr 08
Shouldn't be any problem there, either, because these meds are just like what you would find on pharmacy shelves and in hospitals. They're in protective wrappings, fresh, and with the dosage marked clearly on them.
The only thing qualifying them for a trip down the toilet is that, for whatever reason, the person for whom they're prescribed no longer needs them.
These same pills could be used for somebody else right in the same nursing home or else could be donated to clinics (foreign, domestic, or both).
Getting people to throw away what they have to buy something new is a commercial trick--and it's one that's being magnified to staggering proportions via the flushing ritual.
1 person likes this
@Feona1962 (7526)
• United States
14 Apr 08
That's insane..Those rules were made when? Way, way back...There needs to be a change..This is ridiculous..I understand some of it but this just isn't right...
2 people like this
@AJ1952Chats (2332)
• Anderson, Indiana
14 Apr 08
It certainly isn't right! I have friends having trouble paying for medication, and this nonsense is going on!?! Give me a break!!!
1 person likes this
@faith210 (11224)
• Philippines
13 Apr 08
Hi AJ1952Chats! That is really an eye opener for all of us! I am wondering too why this has been happening. I guess those multi million dollar pharmaceutical companies are doing everything they can to ensure that their business will be more profitable in the long run. Actually medicines that have been recalled or proven unsafe in first world countries are the ones being donated in third world countries but these kind of information are always being denied by our own government officials. And safer medicines are being flushed into the toilet. Isn't that ironic? I do agree with you that those chemicals being flushed down can greatly affect our water system. Who could prove that it is safe to flush them down? Oh there are a lot of things that are being hidden to the public eye because there are a lot of oligarchs worldwide who control the economy for their own selfish reasons. Just my thoughts friend! Take care and have a nice day! :)
@AJ1952Chats (2332)
• Anderson, Indiana
13 Apr 08
And one thing that these oligarchs do to keep people under their thumbs is the same old trick used to make that emperor parade around in his birthday suit and to make everybody go on about a wonderful outfit he was wearing.
People were told that, if they couldn't see the material, they were stupid and unfit for their positions.
It took an outspoken child to get the emperor and his citizens to realize that they'd been taken.
There are some laws needing changed and some issues being questioned, but people are held back from speaking out about them by hearing that it was unpatriotic and/or un-Christian to do so. Even though they don't see any evidence of this, they're not ready to stick out their necks and risk being judged.
One example of this is the issue of gay marriages.
1 person likes this
@johnandspike (8)
•
13 Apr 08
i think that the meds should be used for poor people. as long as they are not tamper with and not out of date. there alot of people who cant afford it
@AJ1952Chats (2332)
• Anderson, Indiana
14 Apr 08
You've said that again!
No wonder nursing homes are so pricey--it's paying for meds that will never help a single person and will end up polluting our waters!
I have close-as-family friends who are poor and have to fight tooth-and-nail to get various medications that they need.
This is ridiculous!!!
1 person likes this
@drknlvly6781 (6246)
• United States
13 Apr 08
This is sad, but not suprising. If we just gave away the pills to people that need them, instead of flushing them down the toilet, then that would cut into the poor pharmaceutical companies money 
. EPA doesn't care, the bottom line has been and will always be the almighty dollar. The only way this will change is if we make some kind of movement to do so. And it would have to be a very big one that takes money out of the pharmaceutical companies' pockets.
. EPA doesn't care, the bottom line has been and will always be the almighty dollar. The only way this will change is if we make some kind of movement to do so. And it would have to be a very big one that takes money out of the pharmaceutical companies' pockets.1 person likes this
@AJ1952Chats (2332)
• Anderson, Indiana
14 Apr 08
I don't resent anyone getting rich--including pharmaceutical companies.
What I DO resent is how they're getting rich--including antics like this!
Our own tax dollars are paying for some of those medicines being flushed. Why aren't they going to pay for things like helping the homeless, bettering educational opportunities for more people, and helping our Veterans who are fighting this endless war now--not to mention getting more help for those Vietnam Veterans who seemed to receive so little appreciation from our country!?!
1 person likes this
@drknlvly6781 (6246)
• United States
14 Apr 08
Again, because they don't care!!! The government and big pharmaceuticals want money by any means necessary. Helping the homeless isn't profitable. Neither is helping the poor Vietnam Vets. Its all about the almighty dollar unfortunately, and these people will do anything to get it.
1 person likes this
@AJ1952Chats (2332)
• Anderson, Indiana
14 Apr 08
I have a notion to ask each Presidential candidate his/her views on this, and the one who comes up with the best answer will get my vote.
At this time, I think this would be Obama, because he's against putting himself in the pocket of lobbyists.
1 person likes this
