Trumm Drug

January 2010 Drug News

• Pharmacists Shine in Ethics Rating

Pharmacists were the second highest ranked profession in Gallup’s annual poll of public attitudes on honesty and ethics released last week. Some 66% of Americans said pharmacists have either very high or high ethical standards. That rating puts pharmacists second only to nurses, who led with 83%.

Rounding out the top five most highly rated among the 22 professions listed by the polling organization were medical doctors, police officers, and engineers. The five professions rating the lowest were Members of Congress, car salespeople, senators, stockbrokers, and HMO managers.

For more than 20 years, pharmacists held the number one position in the annual survey. In 1999, Gallup changed its list of occupations to include nurses, and they have held the top position all but one year since then. “Firefighters” was added as a special item in November 2001, and they ranked first in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Gallup said.

• Abuse of Rxs, Cough Syrup Remain High Among Teens

Teenagers are continuing to use prescription drugs and cough syrup for non-medical uses at a high rate, according to an annual survey by the National Institute on Drug Abuse. Seven of the top 10 drugs abused by 12th graders in 2008 were prescribed or purchased over the counter.

Nearly 1 in 10 high school seniors reported past year non-medical use of Vicodin, and 1 in 20 reported abusing Oxycontin. Non-medical use of these painkillers has increased among 10th graders in the past five years.

For the first time this year the survey measured the non-medical use of Adderall, finding that more than 5% of 10th and 12th graders reported non-medical use of the drug in the past year.

“In addition, the survey recently started measuring how teens obtain the prescription drugs they took for non-medical use,” NIDA said. Some “19% of 12th graders reported they got their drugs by a doctor’s prescription, and 8% reported buying them from a dealer. However, the vast majority – 66% – said they got the drugs from a friend or relative. Of these, 12% reported they ‘took’ them; 21% reported ‘buying’ them, and 33% said they were ‘given’ the drugs. Internet purchases do not appear to be a major source of drugs for this age group..

The survey, released yesterday, also found that methamphetamine use among teens appears to have dropped significantly in recent years, while declines in marijuana use have stalled.

• Drug For Post-Shingles Nerve Pain Gets FDA OK

FDA approved Qutenza (capsaicin) 8% patch, a medicated skin patch to relieve the pain of post-herpetic neuralgia (PHN), a serious complication that can occur after an attack of shingles. The patch is manufactured by Lohmann Therapie-Systems, based in Germany, and distributed by NeurogesX of San Mateo, CA.

• Trivia; What famous compounding pharmacist is credited for the invention of Coca-Cola?

Background: Compounding pharmacists needed to develop good tasting vehicles to dispense bad tasting drugs to their patients. These innovative compounding pharmacists developed various syrup extracts for this purpose. Compounding pharmacists learned that soda water when combined with syrup made drugs even more pleasant. It was soon discovered that these syrups and soda water tasted great when combined so the soda fountain was born.

The product that has given the world its best-known taste was born in Atlanta, Georgia, on May 8, 1886. Dr. John Stith Pemberton, a local pharmacist, produced the syrup for Coca-Cola®, and carried a jug of the new product down the street to Jacobs’ Pharmacy, where it delighted folks and was sold for 5 cents a glass..

1891 Pemberton sells Coca-Cola for $2,300
1919 Candler sells Coca-Cola for $25 million

---