THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
THURSDAY, APRIL 4, 2013
PAGE 7A
TRIBUNE
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HEALTH
FRIN RRFMFR/KANSAN
The Food and Drug Administration is concerned that drug companies are mis-labeling their over-the-counter medications and marketing them as flu treatments. The FDA has taken action by sending warning letters to all companies in violation of the regulations.
FAKE MEDICINE, FAKE PROMISES
What you need to know about over-the-counter medication
It's been one of those mornings. You woke up expecting to bounce out of bed and head to campus, but your body had other plans. Your head is throbbing, your nose is running, and you have zero energy. It finally happened. You're sick. So you drag yourself out the door and drive to the nearest pharmacy. Upon arrival, your weary eyes glaze over the options and finally land on a bottle promising to cure all your symptoms.
But what if the bottle lied? What if it isn't going to cure you and could possibility even be harmful? What if the words on the bottle are nothing more than deceptive advertising?
"That's not deceptive. It's just lying," said Josh Dean, a senior from Overland Park.
He was appalled after learning some over-the-counter medicines do not accurately list their ingredients.
"I can't believe the FDA would allow that," Dean said. "Don't you have to be accurate in (listing) your ingredients?"
Yes, you do have to be accurate, and the FDA does not allow mislabeling of ingredients. Hence the recent warning letters sent out by the Food and Drug Administration. The government agency identified over-the-counter flu medication with deceptive labeling, counterfeit ingredients and contamination.
According to an NBC story published in February, there is much concern about products claiming to contain the antiviral medication Tamiflu. Tamiflu is only available by prescription, but suspected companies claim to have the "generic version." NBC's FDA source says that when tested, the drugs labeled as generic Tamiflu were nothing more than acetaminophen (i.e. Tylenol) or penicillin derivatives.
There are a couple reasons why these ingredients would not be appropriate flu medication, says Pam Simmons, R.N., house supervisor at Bob Wilson Memorial Grant County Hospital in Ulysses.
"First of all, antibiotics like penicillin will do nothing to help someone with the flu," Simmons said. "The flu is a virus, not a bacterial infection."
Simmons also says that using penicillin derivatives could actually be fatal. If you are allergic to this antibiotic and take the counterfeit Tamiflu, you could have a severe allergic reaction and possibly die as a result. Although no cases of this kind have been report so far, it is a major concern. Because of this practice of false
labeling, Simmons urges patients to only take medications approved by a health care provider.
"There are always opportunities to ask doctors or nurses," Simmons said. "And pharmacists are a great resource too."
But say you aren't allergic to penicillin; is the counterfeit flu medication still harmful? Preeya Patel, a second-year pharmacy student from fola, says probably not. Patel says that people need to understand there is no cure for the flu. It is a virus, and therefore needs to go through its cycle. What we take medication for are the symptoms such as a fever. Patel says that acetaminophen helps control the fever, so technically the manufacturers can claim that their product is for the flu. But she does agree that the FDA should remove the counterfeit Tamiflu products, as it is false advertising.
Abbinav Kumar, a junior from New Delhi, India agrees with Patel. The products should be removed from our drug stores.
"I definitely want to know what is inside the pill I am taking." Kumar said. "It is the drug company's responsibility (to list their ingredients). I mean all the things out there in the market list their ingredients and what they are made of. It is very important that drug companies portray their products accurately, as they have a big impact on our health."
— Noopur Goel
Here is what the FDA is doing to combat fake medications:
1. It sends warning letters to violators, asking them to respond with a plan to address FDA concerns.
2. It gives the seller 15 days to respond.
3. If they do not respond, the FDA will pull offending products from circulation.
To protect yourself from counterfeit medication and other frauds, visit www.fda.gov/healthfault for the latest updates.
PERSONAL ESSAY
THE DAY MY DAD DEFEATED DEATH
The world doesn't stop to mourn your tragedies with you
The steamy, still-summer air made me fully aware of my damp, flattened hair and sticky, sweaty arms as the thousands of people surrounding me sang in unison to lyrics from The Band Perry: "If I die young/ bury me in satin/ lay me down on a bed of roses."
The newly popular country band was playing at Power & Light downtown during one of Kansas' infamous heat waves and drought spells in 2011. My parents had tried to stop me from going to the free concert because of the dangerous heat, but that only made me want to sing louder as I thought about how overprotective they were sometimes.
During the encore, I felt a slight buzzing coming from my purse. I figured it was my mom or dad calling to check if I was still alive. I clumsily unzipped my purse and dug out my phone buried at the bottom to see "Allison Cell," my neighbor of 20 years, lit up on the screen. I put it to my left ear and stuck my finger in my right ear hoping to drown out the background. "Allison! Heyyyy, girl!!!" Listen to this song: THE WAY YOU LIIIIIIE. YOU LIE LIKE A—" She quickly cut me off. I could tell something was wrong. Really, really wrong.
"Caroline, don't freak out, but your dad was just taken to the hospital in an ambulance." My heart dropped, and my body went limp. Tears were rolling down my face before I could even process her words. The first thing that popped into my head was how I blew off my dad's request to stay home and gleefully sprinted out the door to pick up my friend Cait. After I hung up the phone, with virtually no other information than my dad was being rushed to the hospital, I grabbed Cait's arm and ran. Pushing through the intoxicated audience and interrupting her conversation with a tanned, handsome cowboy, I wanted to be anywhere but somewhere without my dad. I turned the 40-minute drive home into a 25-minute drive home and barely stopped my car for Cait to get out at her house. I cried the entire way home, hoping that this was all a sick joke to get me home early. It wasn't.
After arriving to an empty, dark house, Allison picked me up and drove me to Shawnee Mission Medical Center. I saw my grandparents in the bland waiting room and was then directed to my dad's room. He was hooked up to multiple IVs and weird machines that seemed to monitor his every function. My dad looked horrible—exhausted, sad and confused. It took almost all his energy just to tell me hi, but I knew it hurt him to know how scared I was. My mom and I stayed at the hospital until 3 a.m., until he was stable and more aware of his environment. My mom told me that my dad had been in bed trying to fall asleep when he told her he didn't feel well. She touched his clammy, cold skin and immediately called 911. An ambulance arrived within minutes, and paramedics were by his bedside seconds later. They distracted my mom by pretending to be afraid of our dog, while in their room they shocked my dad with a defibrillator while he was still conscious.
The next day at the hospital, doctors from all
CONTRIBUTED PHOTO
different units came to my dad's room to hear his story. He was a medical miracle, they said. At first, professionals thought he had a heart attack, but luckily, there was no permanent damage to his heart. We were told that his heart rate the previous night had exceeded 220 beats per minute. Not one doctor could figure out how he was still alive, especially with no permanent effects. Most blamed his whacked-out heart rate on the Hell-like temperatures outside. He was hospitalized for five nights and got a defibrillator inserted next to his heart that will shock his heart rate back to normal in case it ever surpasses a normal beat again.
I realized as I was looking out of the hospital window that, whether you want it to or not, life goes on. People won't stop when you grieve your tragedies. We were put in a paralyzing situation with an outstanding outcome. We know that being together is more important than any concert or night out ever will be, but we've also gone back to living our life the way it was before. In that moment, I'll never forget whispering under my breath one of my favorite lyrics from The Weepies, as cars sped to work and people walked down the sidewalk. "The world spins madly on." We got lucky, and we can't keep wondering how long that luck will last.
- Caroline Atkinson
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