Blog 13 FDA Reversal

The Food and Drug Administration have advised all patients on Friday to continue taking a widespread cholesterol drug even though there had been concerns that the drug might contain specks of glass, retreating advice it gave just a day earlier.  Millions of people are taking Ranbaxy Pharmaceutical's generic Lipitor, or atorvastatin, and numerous have been calling the pharmacies because they were confused about whether or not to take the drugs in which they have in their medicine cabinets.  Ranbaxy originated a recall on November 9 and told all the pharmacies to stop distributing the drug, but gave no feedback to the clients about what to do with what was in their medicine cabinets.  Dr. Janet Woodcock, the director of the FDA's Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, thought the agency would review how it handles communication to the public during recalls.  It took them some time to think out what was going on. They realised that they needed to fix their processes a little bit.  Between 3 million and 4 million people have taken Ranbaxy's atorvastatin, according to Ross Muken, who is the senior managing director at ISI Group. The company has greater than a 40% share of the generic Lipitor market.  The FDA made no public declarations on the recall until Thursday, when the agency said anxious patients should stop taking their medicine if their pharmacist established it was from a recalled lot.  After a conference call Friday afternoon with pharmacies and other groups, the agency decided to change their direction.  It caused people to believe that they should stop taking their medicine.  The glass particles are as small as a grain of sand, she added. Ranbaxy has stopped making atorvastatin while they investigate how the glass got into the drug, according to the FDA.

http://www.cnn.com/2012/11/30/health/fda-generic-lipitor/index.html?hpt=he_c2

Blog 11 Malala's Story

A serious incident happened on October 9^th, with the shooting of 15-year-old Malala.  In one of the most conservative parts of Pakistan, gunman stopped the van, which was carrying young Malala. They ordered that the other girls in the vehicle must identify her. Malala though had experienced frequent death threats in the past, but was never to caught up in them.  So the girls eventually pointed her out to the gunmen so that they would not be injured. Even with that said there was one gunman who opened fire, wounding these three girls. Two of these girls were lucking having non-life-threatening injuries, but when the bullets struck Malala, they were aimed at her head and her neck.  The assailants were able to get away though.  Malala was in a terrible condition.  Her uncle had described her as having agonizing pain and saying how she was unable to stop moving her arms and legs.  Doctors were working hard in order to save her life, then her condition dropped severely.  They did operations in order to remove a bullet from her neck.  After her surgery, she was not responsive for just under three days.  A month later, it is considered a miracle that Malala is alive, a girl who fights for the right of other girls to get an education, is still living and even more shocking that she has suffered no major brain or nerve damage.  In just over four weeks, Malala has gone from intensive care in Pakistan, and showing no signs of consciousness to now being able to walk, write, read and smile again in a hospital in the UK.  Outside of her room in her hospital, the world has turned her into the global symbol for the fight to allow girls everywhere in the world access to an education.  The United Nations has now decided to declared Saturday, November 10, Malala Day. This is a day to focus on Malala and all of the other millions of girls like Malala who are not enrolled in school.  

http://www.cnn.com/2012/11/10/world/asia/pakistan-malala-one-month/index.html?hpt=hp_c1

Blog 10 How to Avoid Getting the Flu

            Thanks to scientists who are continuing to work efficiently to reinvent the best ways to fight infectious bacteria and germs by creating a better flu shot, it's gotten a lot easier than before to protect yourself.  Doctor’s are really pushing patience to follow their advice so that this can be the year they do not get the flu.  The CDC recommendations are about 6 months everyone she get a vaccination in order to prevent getting sick during flu season. Every year over 200,000 people are put into the hospital due to symptoms, which are linked to the flu, and over thousands of people die if not treated properly.  Just under 18,000 people in 2009, were estimated to have died due to the H1N1 epidemic.  Sabra Klein states that women are more prone to end up in the hospital with flu symptoms compared to men.  This is because men’s bodies are more susceptible to germs and bacteria unlike women.  The vaccine which is recommended during flu season is to say the least 60% effective; it is not 100% effective but if you did end up getting the flu after getting the flu shot your symptoms will still be less severe than a patient who has not had the flu shot because your body would have built up some immunity. The flu generally gets passed around when people who are infected sneeze, cough, or just talk, and these germs can even be passes along from up to six to 10 feet away. A typical person will not get the flu from typing on a keyboard or pressing an elevator button, but that is how the bacteria can be passed around that could be the start to the flu.  Doctor’s suggest being extra clean, and to clean public computer or telephones with disinfectant wipes before you use them so that you will have less of a chance of picking up bacteria, or even using hand sanitizer after using the telephone or computer. When you are sick rest is really quite necessary if you want any hope of getting better, researchers have proved that a person getting more rest is less likely to get sick.  As well what you eat can make a huge impact, you don’t want to eat junk food while you are sick doctor’s recommend eating healthy so that you can build up your immune system. You should cut back on unhealthy foods such as candy and chips and eat foods that will enhance your immune response, such as fruits and vegetables. 

http://www.cnn.com/2012/11/02/health/health-cold-flu/index.html?hpt=he_c1 

Blog 9 Floods in Nigeria

There were fierce floods, which had killed dozens in Nigeria and had left tens of thousands of local residents as well as crocodiles, hippos and other water animals washed into peoples homes.  Due to the floods, they have left 148 people dead and have also affected 21 of the 36 states in Nigeria, according to the Red Cross.   These torrential downpours have caused tremendous wrecks in the villages and the projects over the past few weeks.  About 134,000 people have currently been affected by the weather in Nigeria and the concern is still growing about the spread and risks of waterborne diseases affecting the people.  These floods have caused a wreck in a series of states, which include Bayelsa and Benue.  A lot of people have been taken out of their homes; they have been displaced.  Snakes, crocodiles and hippos have even been displaced as well as the people and are now ending up in people's homes due to the floods.  The bad part is now that nothing has been fixed about this situation yet; people are still suffering.  State officials are still working to create drainage throughout the rivers.  The officials main goals are being able to help calm down the people who have been displaced and to also improve on the drainage.  Their hope is that when the drainage is fully equipped, and the flooding has calmed down to send out more resources to help the people who are suffering. This flood took all the people by surprise, they will need help from agencies that are out there that usually help out in disasters such as this one.  This will be a tough challenge for the people to make sure that everyone is well.  In the state of Benue though, over 25, 000 people have been displaced after one of their local rivers overflowed.  Nigeria has an incredibly rainy season, which tends to occur between May and October.  These heavy rains are especially hard on the small communities in rural areas, where drainage is limited or inconsistent.  Within the last month people of Nigeria were urged to move to higher grounds due to the flooding of their river. The evacuation mostly affected the states of Niger, Kogi, Kwara, Kebbi, Anambra as well as Delta.

http://edition.cnn.com/2012/10/05/world/africa/nigeria-floods/index.html

Blog 8 Drug Manufacturers

There are now morphine cartridges that will contain up to twice the labeled dose, then regular due to the lack of safety in the manufacturing business. Manufacturing plants have been slacking off lately and will proceed to use rusty tools, mold in production areas and will omit the rule of sanitation not caring about the safety of others. The last couple of years, the major manufacturers of sterile injectable drugs, which are generally inspected federal government, have been warned by the food and drug administration about violating several of the regulation guidelines.  Several factories are being shut down due to this problem, or their production is quite slow due to the fixing of these problems.  There have been countless numbers of health scares recently in the pharmacies and they all trace these problems back to the main manufacturers. There has been a report saying that about 19 people had died from meningitis in an outbreak due to the New England Compounding Center in Massachusetts. Supplies of a steroid, methylprednisolone acetate, had become short because Teva and Sandoz stopped producing it. Manufacturers do note that there are sterile drugs that are being made such as products like chemotherapy drugs and anti-seizure drugs like diazepam.  These are sold in the United States and are so far safe, with a large quantity as well. Since around 2009, regulators have discovered the failures in quality control at plants in areas such as North Carolina, California and Costa Rica.  This was the leading cause to several recalls of products - diverse as broken infusion pumps to overfilled morphine vials. A company in Rocky Mount North Carolina had to slow down their production and they were one of the largest manufacturers.  That being said they also experienced the most recalls and problems.

            I believe that the FDA should be looking at drug manufacturers regularly because we are the ones that end up taking the drugs, which they make, and they should be safe.  We should not have to worry whether the medicine we take to relieve us is safe or not.  These companies don’t follow the FDA regulations and are not sanitary because they believe it will slow down their production.  But in fact if they do keep their manufacturing business clean more pharmacies will purchase the drugs from them because they would have passed the FDA inspections, unlike the other manufacturers.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/18/business/drug-makers-stalled-in-a-cycle-of-quality-lapses-and-shortages.html?ref=health&_r=0