Pharma Fights Effort To Dispose Of Unused Meds
35 CommentsBy Ed Silverman // January 23rd, 2012 // 10:05 am
For the past few years, a growing effort has been made to safely dispose of unused prescription drugs lingering in medicine cabinets and dresser drawers. Flushing medications down the toilet can cause environmental problems, such as tainting drinking water supplies (see this). And leaving drugs, notably painkillers, around the house can also lead to abuse and overdose by teens and adults, who sometimes sell pills.
To combat the problem, a state senator in Washington plans to try - for a fourth time - to introduce legislation that would create a disposal program. And the plan, which is a modeled on a similar effort in Vancouver involving drop-offs at local pharmacies, would require drugmakers to pony up some funds to cover the cost. However, the pharmaceutical industry is, once again, fighting the program, as InvestigateWest reports.
In a blog he wrote last year, state senator Adam Kline took PhRMA, the industry trade group to task for lobbying against his bill (which you can read here). He noted that local law-enforcement agencies were collecting unwanted meds, but industry was better positioned to cover the estimated $250,000 annual cost.
“The Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers Association is very displeased about this bill. They are interested in selling drugs, not taking them back, and have marshaled their considerable resources to lobby against it. Pharma doesn’t like the notion that those who put a product into the marketplace and profit from it owe the public some obligation of stewardship over it,” he wrote (read his blog here).
A summary of the legislation prepared last February by the state Senate Committee On Health & Long-Term Care noted that law-enforcement agencies are unable to cover the long-term costs of such programs. “The private sector needs to be responsible for its costs because current take-back programs are not sustainable by local governments,” the summary stated.
Those testifying in favor of the legislation at the time included the Washington Association for Substance Abuse and Violence Prevention; the Association of Northwest Pharmacies; the Washington State Hospice and Palliative Organization; the Local Hazardous Waste Management Program and several law-enforcement officers.
In the same summary, objections were offered by the Consumer Health Products Association, which represents drugmakers that sell over-the-counter medicines; the Washington Biotechnology and Biomedical Association and PhRMA. They argued that there was no evidence the Vancouver program had mitigated the problems raised in the legislation.
Calling the legislation “unnecessary,” the trade groups cited the US Environmental Protection Agency to claim that most unwanted traces of prescription meds that are found in water supplies come from pooping. But they declined to discuss issues involving addiction, while arguing, at the same time, that the bill will not prevent abuse.
Instead, the organizations want to emphasize consumer education for storage and dispoals. “This bill is unnecessary and will not prevent medicine abuse or affect the environment - 3 (percent) to 7 percent of drugs go unused. We should focus on effective mechanisms to dispose of drugs. The best way is to dispose of medicines in the household trash” (here is the summary).
A state representative plans to introduce a companion bill in the latest effort to make the disposal program a reality. Meanwhile, a PhRMA spokesperson tells InvestigateWest that “there is insufficient evidence that such a program is cost-effective or would reduce drug diversion. Instead, the proposed program could create known sites for or access points to aggregated medicines and could unintentionally increase diversion and abuse.” What to do you think?
Should Drugmakers Fund The Disposal Program?
- Yes (60%, 124 Votes)
- No (40%, 84 Votes)
Total Voters: 208
Loading ...toilet pic thx to sustainable sanitation on flickr
original industry insider
I would tell PhRMA to pony up a few simoleons to the Superfund and let them worry about the cleanup. Or, hit up Warren Buffet. He seems to be in a mood to pay more taxes.
Reality Bites
One of the major concerns of the brand drug industry is that the vast majority of meds (~70%-75%) are generic, but the generic industry is not part of the conversation about paying for the solution.
Justice in MI
It does seem a little silly to me for pharma to pay for “disposal.”
But I do think this is a job for the private sector. We don’t want big government putting their hands down our toilets.
I would hire the current Republican candidates to do that. It would create jobs and perhaps Ron Paul would want to distribute whatever he found to anyone inclined to take it.
dzieczko
The concern is with the amount of active molecules floating around municiple water sources - so it’s a recycling issue, not a toilet issue…might even help with drug shortages if pharma finds a way to safely re-cycle un-used meds - could be a whole new lucrative business branch-off model…
@Justice - Big government delivers unexpected health benefits - once they take your last egg-laying chicken via tax policies and you don’t have a pot to ___ in, or a couch to potato upon, the curse of sitting too many hours paying bills and crunching data disappears - ‘roid-be-gone :-))
Always look for the positive spin…
Anne PME
dzieczko, although limited, and although it is sometimes abused, under limited circumstances is in legal to repurpose (I call it recycling) a drug.
Reality Bites has a good point about generics comprising the majority of the returns. Given this, I wonder why no one is asking authorized distributors of record (drug wholesalers, big pharmacies, PBM mail order) to pay the unused med disposal program?
dzieczko
A business model will have to be developed that will make it profitable to repurpose the returns - and I note your caution about a *black market* already doing it improperly and profiting that way.
SOPs for proper disposal have been around forever but until someone makes a profit off of following them, ways around them (who will pay) is where we are stuck. Which means more financial onerous on taxpayers to get drug-free tap water which can only be done with new technology which also has no current investment $ interested in developing the technology because there is no profit in it since there is no profit in modernizing infrastructure in the current economic climate…
Arun D. Jatkar
I am a diabetic and I have a problem of disposing the used lancets and test strips after taking the blood sugar measurements. My previous physician had a biohazard collection service and took the used lancets adn test strips. The new physician does not have this service. Hospitals do not take the biohazardous waste like this from people who are not hospitalized.
Any solutions?
original industry insider
Arun, you might consider buying yourself the Bayer Contour Blood Glucose Monitoring System. I’ve linked to the manual. The lance has a protective cap that you can cover with after use. That would seem to me to avoid the problem of sharps disposal, but I suggest you ask someone familiar with its use.
http://www.bayercontourusb.us/pdfs/CntrUSB_UG_US
original industry insider
dz, you can have all the drug free tap water you want at no cost to you, John Q Taxpayer. Go shell out a few bucks on a subscription to Poland Spring. I’ll even give you a link to Home Delivery website.
http://delivery.polandspring.com/Delivery/Home/Help/Default.aspx
Anne PME
Hi Arun: I have a similar problem with one of my new physicians. He has a biohazard service, but he refuses to take my used sharps. It is not fair to dump all of my sharps on my PCP.
We have drug take back day in my state, so I was able to safely dipose of them but I am not sure that they will allow sharps disposal at drug take back days moving forward. I am getting quite a pile of used sharps, so I plan to contact a city council member that I know to explain the situation and ask her where to bring them
sok82
I’m having a hard time thinking of any other industry where a willing consumer purchases a product, neglects to use it, and then the producer is on the hook for collecting it and disposing of it in a proper manner.
Whatever happened to personal responsibility? Grandma doesn’t use all of her pain meds and her punk grandkid steals some. Those darned pharma companies!!…..??
original industry insider
I see the pharmacy as a logical collection point for the disposal of drugs since the pharmacy serves as a storage point for many suppliers. Make it like we did with the old six ounce Coca Cola bottles. The pharmacist tags on an extra three bucks at the point of purchase. When you bring back the unused drug or an empty bottle you get a partial refund, like the nickel we got back on the empty Coke bottle. Alternatively you could get a store credit for the amount of the refund. I’m sure there a lot of customers who would return their drugs if they knew that there was a bag of Tottsie Rolls in it for them on the other side.
original industry insider
Don’t know what states you live in, but in New Jersey we have a Safe Syringe Disposal Program, which also includes used lancets. The New Jersey Hospital Association together with local hospitals offer a program to safely and responsibly dispose of syringes, needles and lancets generated in the home. Participating hospitals offer rigid containers to dispose of these items for a small one time fee to individuals who are injection dependent. (This program does not require needles to be clipped prior to placing them in the container). The container must be returned to the hospital when full for proper disposal and will be exchanged for a new empty container at that time.
Check and see if your state has a similar program. Here’s the link for NJ.
http://www.state.nj.us/health/eoh/phss/syringe.pdf
dzieczko
The Native American casinos in AZ and NV provide sharps disposal units in the bathrooms on their properties - where there’s a will, there’s a way..
I’ll leave it to Ed to provide the link to the other article on this site that goes into the issue of municiple water (was it witch’s brew…?) since we’re all going to be subjected to flippant trolls for the foreseeable future…and I tend to blow up the bridge behind me - especially when I have no interest in going back to their lalaland again…
Once you try to shut people up who are interested in doing things the best way, conversation over…I’m not some Kai Opaka archetype from Star Trek DS9 - Season 1 Episode 12 :-)
Suzanne
sok82 - if you or anyone in your family had a chronic disease, you would understand that it isn’t a matter of ‘neglecting’ to use a drug.
I just (improperly, I guess) disposed of three jugs of oral suspension meloxicam, six tubes of Voltaren gel, and a big ol’ bottle of Zyrtec, all discontinued per physician’s orders.
I’ve still got some methotrexate, prednisone, and Relafen pills to deal with, but they don’t take up nearly as much space.
Justice in MI
dzie–Do you know is the Newtster still wants to undo Kefauver-Harris and return FDA to pre-thalidomide regulatory status?
My chicken is concerned.
Red Randalf
I have to agree with sok82. A much bigger concern is the heavy metals present in all electronics. Municipalities have programs to recycle old computers and TVs, yet I don’t hear calls for Dell, HP, or Toshiba to foot the bill for it. Nor does Sherwin-Williams have to take back unused paint. I’m thinking a half gallon of old paint poses a lot more environmental risk than fifteen expired Lipitor tablets. If a pharma company is responsible for a contaminated manufacturing site that’s one thing, but let’s not single them out for a problem that really goes far beyond the scope of the products they make.
ke-mo sah-bee
dzie the correct spelling is “municipal”, not “municiple”, which doesn’t exist in my dictionary, although it maybe exists in yours. Maybe you need to quit hanging around those indian casinos and take a course in remedial english, or buy a computer with spell check.
Tiberius
dziecko, you make such loose associations between resurrecting old discussion points and TV Star Trek character that I believe you exist in a world loosely tethered to reality. For those who don’t know, per Star Trek website, “Opaka was tragically lost to Bajor in a move she foresaw as prophecy when she left Bajor for the first time ever to tour DS9 unannounced. Journeying through the wormhole, she was killed in a Runabout crash on the Ennis/Nol Ennis penal moon and then resurrected by the moon’s unique atmosphere, opting to stay behind to help heal the spirit of the undying combatants there as a fulfillment of her own personal prophesy.”
Far out indeed.
dzieczko
@ke - obviously, your version is not etched in stone:
http://www.world-airport-codes.com/united-states/beverly-municiple-airport-807.html
and there are a couple thousand more hits on the internet….
@tiberius - *old discussion points*? Is that what you call the insider’s record of climbing to the top tier of big pharma…?
Since you didn’t watch the episode, the point zinged right over your head - providing immortality for *combatants* turns out to not be *progress*…Cisco was ready to get them all out of there since the situation was so sadistic, even the Prime Directive recognized it was an artificial construct….
but then what would a self-proclaimed *Tiberius* know about the moral arguments against sadism since sadism is just entertainment…?
spell check police
dzie, are you in this picture? This is the group that published the airport codes that misspelled Beverly Municipal Airport. If you don’t believe me then also linked is the airport website with the correct spelling. This is why the internet is an unreliable resource.
http://www.fubra.com/about/team/
http://www.beverlyairport.com/
dzieczko
Explanation for the puerile noise from the peanut gallery about water quality attempting to silence people trying to do the right thing:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/24/camp-lejeune-water-contamination-watchdog-groups_n_1228041.html
dzieczko
@SCP - You DO know that using spelling to throw a conversation off topic is RUDE, right? Of course you do, that was the point…duh on me…
504,000 hits - guess it’s one of those common mis-spellings that are not considered illiterate and you’ll find the link either way…
Now on to Facebook…
http://www.facebook.com/pages/City-of-oakland-municiple-service-division/162501363812014
spell check police
dzie, who appointed YOU as the arbiter of proper protocol on this site? In fact, while I’m at it, your overall poor grammar, improper use of tense, dependent clauses, run-on sentences, misspellings, misplaced modifiers and generally poor syntax makes your postings almost incomprehensible.
Somewhere along the way you must have learned how to diagram a sentence. Try constructing one with the subject, object, verb, and predicate in proper sequence, and you might find that your readers, except perhaps for those who have missed their last dose of antipsychotic medication might understand you better.
dzieczko
Here SCP - diagram this modern tweet…
yaacsah
harpy
*make
inconsistent use of Oxford comma
missing comma between “medication” and “might”
see how easy it is to nit-pick? classic ad hominem attack.
Doc
How about throwing them in the trash to go to the local landfill?
My grandmother has an old rusted out hulk of a Chevy truck on her farm, wonder if I can get the local Chevy dealer to come dispose if it for free, after all, they sold it to her 50 years ago.
dzieczko
@Doc - One man’s trash is another man’s treasure…if there’s a way to earn profit from the BEST way to dispose of unused meds - then what is your problem with people lobbying pharma for investing in the disposal BUSINESS…? I don’t understand the problem with earning a profit from finding the BEST way to dispose of unused drugs…
dziczko
Pharma companies have to recall their products, on occasion. And big batches, too.
So again, what’s the ideological problem with establishing a new for-profit business with new for-profit technology that disposes of stuff properly before it gets into EVERYBODY’s water source?
Josh
Nothing with having a business that does that. I think what people are saying is in no other industry where the onus is on them to take back their product (I.e. food, automotive, electronics, batteries, etc.). The FDA and DEA each have take back programs, people just need to start using them.
Mindano Iha
Pharma companies and their compatriots are only interested in profits. Disposal of medicines will not be of interest because of the cost.
yo
Pure 100% BS !!!!
You swallow, you poop, you pee and the drugs are in the water. Flushing vs. swallowing equals ZERO, NOTHING, NADA! This is all hype.
Most drug products are organic as in organic chemistry, not as in range feed chickens. And as organic compounds they’re very succeptable to teeny weeny bacteria eating them up for the main course or perhaps desert … MMMM MMMM GOOD!
To the biohazard freaks out there. Your blood, and other secretions including the poop and pee mentioned above is only a biohazard to others. So here’s what you do. Place your lancets, needles, syringes and any other sharps that has or has not been in contact with your bodily fluids in a used plastic soda bottle, screw the top on and throw it in the trash. Then the waste management specialist will not get stuck by one of your errant sharps (contaminated or not getting stuck causes much anxiety and the need to visit a hospital ER for prophylaxis against hepatitis B, HIV, and other blood bourne illnesses so be safe and put it in a soda bottle). This is why no one wants to handle the used stuff for fear of accidental exposure. No one knows if your hep B positive or HIV +. So what pharmacist, doctor, hospital person is going to want to collect it?
original industry insider
yo, are you willing to pick up the tab for all of the fines levied against those who have taken your advice for improper disposal of sharps?
Rose Hoban
Arun,
When I was a nurse practicing in NY, we instructed patients to put their sharps in an old bleach bottle (or other heavy plastic), with some bleachy water in there, seal the top with tape, give it a couple of good shakes and then it could be disposed of.
But that was back in the nineties. Laws may have changed.
Have you called your local waste management entity? I’m pretty sure where I am in NC, they’ll take it at the county landfill if prepped similarly.
dzieczko
How does pharma dispose of the large lots of recalls….?
As for sharps - definitely a potential for a new business since the amount of sharps needing disposal is forecast to grow for years to come…