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Tuesday, February 9, 2010 |
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Pharmacist: drug disposal a problem
Published November 19, 2009
SEGUIN — A local pharmacist says lack of a safe system for disposing of unused medications is a health risk in homes and a danger to the environment.
Pharmacist Doug Parker of Parker’s City Pharmacy in Seguin, addressed the members of the Seguin Youth Leadership Academy, a year-long training program for high school juniors and seniors who are preparing for leadership or volunteer roles in their communities as adults.
The group, which adopted as its community service project raising awareness of the dangers of piling old prescriptions up in the medicine cabinet rather than properly discarding them, graduates in a program this evening at the Guadalupe-Blanco River Authority’s River Annex off Nolan Street. Reception is set for 6:30 p.m. with the program, which will include presentations from the class members modeled on the television program, “The Apprentice,” beginning at 7 p.m.
Parker was invited to help explore the issue of what to do with old prescriptions because the students learned when they looked at the issue that there’s no satisfactory system for disposing of old medicines, and two of the most common methods — stockpiling them in the bathroom or flushing them down the toilet — are both unsafe.
Officials responsible for the nation’s water supply say such drugs should never be flushed because many of the chemicals that make them up cannot be removed from drinking water. Likewise, waste management officials don’t recommend dumping bottles of pills in landfills without taking special measures to make sure they’re rendered useless.
And even that isn’t optimal, Parker said.
Parker is a consulting pharmacist to a number of long-term care facilities, and he’s been involved in the issue of what to do with old medications for two decades through the Texas Pharmacy Association or the Board of Pharmacy, which in 2000 named Parker its “pharmacist of the year” — largely for his work on the drug disposal issue.
“After spending 20 years on this issue, the good news is I’ve made some progress,” Parker told the SYLA group, which is comprised of juniors and seniors from the county’s high schools. “The bad news is I don’t have an answer about what to do about outdated drugs at home.”
Parker got involved on the issue at the state level after seeing how many medications nursing facilities must destroy.
“What really disturbed me long ago is the unbelievable volume of medicines we were destroying,” he said.
Long-term care and rehab facilities must discard old medications every 90 days, Parker said.
For years, all did it pretty much the same way, he said.
“Our procedure for years had been to get a big bucket, punch them out of their blister packs and flush them down the river,” Parker said. “But the strength of some of these prescriptions is mind-boggling now.”
One attendee at the town meeting suggested that maybe a system could be set up that is similar to the disposal of other medical or biological wastes. Maybe crematoriums could dispose of the medications, he suggested.
Perhaps, Parker agreed.
Pharmacists can’t legally take the drugs back, but perhaps a disposal solution involving pharmacists could be developed, he said.
“I think it would be great to open up a dialogue with the Texas Board of Pharmacy,” Parker said. “I would definitely see a pharmacist as being the gatekeeper of a return program.”
He recommended that the students take up the issue with the state pharmacy board, and said he would give them contact information. But the issue will take some time, he cautioned.
“I will tell you the Board of Pharmacy in Texas is the toughest in the nation,” Parker said. “Getting things changed is sometimes very difficult, and very slow-moving. But it can happen.”
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