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Senior Alert
Leftover Drugs Are a Prescription for Trouble for
Senior Citizens
Dec. 22, 2005 - Resolving to clean out your
medicine cabinet or that of a senior citizen you care about - is a
good idea for the new year. Hanging onto unused medications can increase
the chances of taking the wrong one, and old drugs can lose their
potency, reports the Harvard Heart Letter. But have you ever thought
about where the medicine will end up? Scientists are finding everything
from aspirin to Zoloft in our streams, rivers, and lakes.
The traditional advice has been to flush unused
drugs down the toilet or put them in the trash. Neither is a good
method, says the Harvard Heart Letter.
Drugs can kill helpful bacteria in septic systems
and pass largely untouched through sewage treatment plants. Children and
animals can get into drugs tossed in the trash, and once in landfills,
drugs can trickle into groundwater.
Regulations prohibit medication recycling. However,
there are a few innovative drug disposal programs, in which citizens can
drop off medications along with household hazardous waste, mail unused
drugs to their states Drug Enforcement Agency, or donate drugs to the
needy.
What can you do to ensure safe drug disposal? The
Harvard Heart Letter offers these suggestions:
1. Ask your pharmacist if he or she can take back medications.
2. Call your city or state to ask about disposal programs like those
mentioned above.
3. If you need to put your medications in the trash, keep them in their
original childproof and watertight containers. Leave the label on, but
scratch out your name to protect privacy. Add some water to pills, and
put some flour in liquids. Conceal the vials by putting them in empty
margarine tubs or paper bags before throwing them out.
Also in the current issue:
Important numbers for health risk factors
Exercise: Just do it
Trans fat labeling on foods
A doctor answers: Why do I feel a pulse above my ear? And, are statins
good for arthritis?
The Harvard Heart Letter is available from Harvard
Health Publications, the publishing division of Harvard Medical School,
for $28 per year. Subscribe at
http://www.health.harvard.edu/heart
or by calling 1-877-649-9457 (toll free).
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