Hi! My name is Mahoney. I just got back from 15 months in Iraq. Hooah. I work in a pharmacy. Every year in America, there are 1.5 million injuries due to medication errors, and I believe that they should make medication as safe as possible. There are A LOT more errors than 1.5 million made every year in America. Most don't cause injury. But then again, there is the generally accepted number of 7,000 deaths from medication errors every year in America. A lot of those are ordering mistakes or overdoses, but inside every pharmacy that I have worked, there has been patients recieve the wrong drug.
Every tablet or capsule should have the generic name of the medication stamped on it. And basically what that boils down to for you, is one dollar you pay to save lives and cut down on the 1.5 million innocent people injured every year. And cut down on the MILLIONS more medication errors that happen every year but don't hurt anyone. There is a good chance that you, eventually, will be on multiple chronic drugs, like Lisinopril and doxazosin. Lifesaving drugs. Maybe you will have high cholesterol. The cost of stamping the drugs should be under a dollar per person every year, far less than the $20+ average that everyone pays out in lawsuits. (six billion dollars+ a year) I personally think though, that I would probably pay a dollar every year to save around just 3 peoples lives. Definetelly 5 people. How do you feel about this? If you wouldn't pay a dollar a year for 3 peoples lives, how about 20 deaths and 15 thousand injuries. If no still, add yourself and your parents, maybe being admited into a hospital, into that equation. There are a lot of injuries every year. In all reality, I would pay a lot more than a dollar for one person. It's pretty hard to put a price on it though. Would you pay a dollar a year to save one person from dying? How much would you spend for a thousand lives. Surely more than a dollar! It might cost 20 cents to have your pills stamped.
Also, there needs to be a law to require the bottles of high alert injectable drugs, like Heparin, Potassium and Insulin, to have a specific color. All of the medication safety boards know this, but understand that it would be very hard to regulate. The idea has been floating around for a while, long before I started working in a pharmacy. A very common error is mixing up Heparin and Insulin. There should be a special color for unconcentrated Heparin to cut down on drug errors in infants. Concentrated heparin can really mess an infant up. And 1.5 million injuries a year? You have to make it as safe as possible! The Heparin bottle should be required, by law, to be flourescent orange. The government passes all other kinds of safety laws and all goods have to be inspected. Like seat belt laws for automobiles and safety standards for your own home construction and appliances. You happily pay these things because they makes YOU safer. Well, I think all medication should be as safe as possible.
This last week at the Joint Forces Pharmacy Seminar in Reno, I spoke with the representative from the USP, the organization that has set The United States standard of pharmacy practice since 1820. He agreed with me that stamping the generic name on every pill is a good idea and said that the USP actually tried to make this happen about 10 years ago, but the drug manufacturers didn't want to do it, and that Congress would need to be pressured to enact a law. I HAVE A VIDEO of me talking to him! THE USP THINKS THAT THIS IS A GOOD IDEA! And every other Pharmacy person I've talked to. Including all 3 drug reps I talked to at this conference. The drug reps actually hadn't heard of it. I was trying to find out how much it would cost per bottle. They didn't know but all said around a penny, at the large volume that is manufactered. So that would directly cost me 5 cents a year for my own prescriptions. But I would pay that everyday, working in a pharmacy and all. I wonder what other medical professionals think. Nurses? Do you think that this is a good idea? You would probably spend at least a penny everyday as insurance, much less to save lives and injury every year. But the thing is, it would probably be saving money. And it wouldn't cost me more than a dollar. Again, it would probably save money.
The USP representative also said there has been a push to standardize the code, like M357 for every drug accross all manufactorers. Or different shapes and colors for certain drugs. I DON'T like that idea, because then the checker starts to use it for identification and that's one more set of errors. "I swore it was the coumadin shape, I've been handing them out for years." There are a lot of different generic drug manufactorers all manufactoring the same drug. Their needs to be a law to make them stamp, "Ciprofloxacin" on the side of the tablet. My omeprazole, a capsule, has 18 characters on only one side of the capsule. It says "Mylan" twice and "6150" twice. That's just on one side of the capsule, nothing is written on the other side.
You know, some of the dangerous pills, and the "brand name" ones already do have the names stamped on them. Well, they all should have the name stamped on them. My Grandma's pills should have the drug name on it. Even if it cost a penny to stamp a whole bottle, the American people would want to pay for it. And the American people deserve it. At 3 billion prescriptions written annually and at least 6 billion dollars paid out in lawsuits, well, that equals at least TWO DOLLARS A BOTTLE, probably more, that we pay in lawsuits. $2 a bottle. Much more than the PENNY A BOTTLE that it would cost to stamp the pill. Again, might even save money. And lives! Are you in?
Everyone has seen those chain letters right. Well, here's mine. Please not only pass this along, but copy, paste and send this to your Representatives and Senators. Heck, send it to the President. Might be a little more fun for you. THIS IS THE ONLY WAY THIS WILL WORK! A lot of different people have to preasure Congress. You will be doing your part. I'm serious now, forward it. Forward it to anyone you know working in a hospital. Send it around your churches. If someone told you that you could save 100 peoples lives by sending an email, you would do it, no questions asked. Or even if someone told you that you could save just one child's life by simply sending an email, you would do it. So help save some kids by forwarding this one.
This solution cuts down on errors that happen inside of every pharmacy in Amercia (except Walgreens, they're pretty good!), in-patient hospital settings, like when a woman's having a baby, nursing home errors, and at home medication errors. It cuts down on errors at every point in the medication chain. Everyone, even you the patient, checks it. So it would cut down on medication errors and death. Less lawsuits is also a good thing. I would hate for someone to die like that. I think that it is ridiculous that this is not already a safety requirement. The companies can still put the BRAND name on it.
Think about it. If 1.5 million people were injured annually because automobile manufactures didn't want transfer a penny of cost to the consumers, a cost that they would want to pay, something would be done. They would find a way to cut down on the 1.5 million injured. There are millions and millions of more errors that don't result in injury. Probably around 10 million a year. If 10 million people's toasters blew up and burnt 1.5 million innocent people, something would be done. And, I would pay a dollar a year to save ONE person's live. Medication should be as safe as possible! Too easy. SPC Mahoney.
From the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies
The USP is a non-governmental, not-for-profit public health organization whose independent, volunteer experts work under strict conflict–of–interest rules to set its scientific standards. It was established in 1820.
If you've received a paper copy of this letter and want to send it to your Senators, please copy and paste the following URL that links to a digital copy of it! Send it to some friends online. That's the only way this will work. You will be doing your part.
