From Commentariat member AE comes this warning that as of January 1 the FDA is banning certain over-the-counter veterinary antibiotics.
Since preppers have long relied on feed-store meds to get around both the screamingly high prices and absurd regulations around human-grade prescription meds, this could be a big deal.
Or not.
First important thing to know: It doesn’t affect all veterinary antibiotics. In theory you should still be able to buy that injectable penicillin that’s been the mainstay of so many medical kits. Primarily at stake are feed-grade antibiotics, whose casual use has become so notorious in milk and meat. Here’s the FDA’s diktat to retailers. And here’s the list of drugs that are no longer OTC.
This is primarily directed at livestock producers and involves drugs designed to be fed, not injected. Never mind that livestock producers have already (voluntarily, under pressure from discerning customers) been backing away from feeding antibiotics. Never mind that we shouldn’t live under fiat law. This is How It Shall Be. We need to be aware, but not to panic.
Still, as The SHTFPlan.com article notes, retailers will start becoming more restrictive about what and how they sell OTC. They’ll do that out of sheer self defense against the vagaries and cruelties of federal bureaucracy, if for no other reason. So if you’ve been planning to add or update your med kit with veterinary antibiotics, the time to do it is probably in the next couple of weeks. Hit those feed stores before their owners get too nervous to deal with you. Or, if you need to buy after January 1, it’s probably a good idea to spread your purchases around so as not to call attention to yourself.
I’m of several minds about feed-grain medicines (in no particular order) — and yes, I have bought and used them myself.
Firstly, they’re only “necessary” because the growers often dose their animals indiscriminately, rather than specifically for need. And this is a matter of not caring for their animals, as opposed to watching them, and isolating and treating them quickly and humanely when a problem arises. Medicine should not be put indiscriminately into bulk feed grain or into any product that may affect another species.
Secondly, the effects of any one medicine can (may) accumulate over time in human bodies, and the individual become allergic or resistant to it or to its drug family (the -cillins, -mycins, sulfates, e.g.). This is why many “superbugs” — bacteria and viruses — have come on the scene in the past 10-20 years, and why many people succumb to those superbugs: the medicines simply do not work any more. (It’s not just feed-grain that’s been bombarded with antibiotics, but meats, dairy products and other processed foods at the manufacturing plant. Read the labels, folks.)
Thirdly, people who have access to OTC medicines tend to take them more often because they are available — and often do not know, or do not believe, that the regular or indiscriminate use of a medicine can accumulate to the point of becoming useless or allergenic. This is true of many medicines and OTC “cures” (which usually act on only a symptom, in any case), not just antibiotics.
This does not mean that drugs should be regulated by government (but perhaps evaluated by a private comsumer organization?), but it does mean that both growers and “comsumers” should be more aware of what they buy, how often they use it, and what they use it for. It’s not really the responsibility of the retailer — though you would hope he cares enough to understand how his products should be sold — to monitor his customers’ purchases.
You might check with pet stores- particularly the fish medications, but also the stuff for birds and small mammals. I know some things disappeared off the shelves, but you still might look. And maybe someone has some old stock of the stuff you can’t get now.
Pretty sure some of the antibiotics eventually get weak or expire, would check about buying old stock and figure out how to throw out and replace stuff periodically. You want to be sure you’re killing bacteria with a potent med, not helping it mutate into something stronger.
Stuff doesn’t expire as soon as the “expiration date” would indicate: http://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/drug-expiration-dates-do-they-mean-anything
Yes, familiar with that. Military found hard shell meds like cipro ok at nine years, tetracycline, I think not good. Kind of depends, seems to me, if we’re talking years or decades. I suppose if the potency fades (how would we know?) we could take a bigger. Dose.
The article I had read a couple of years ago said the only pill that really degraded much was aspirin. And that even the other stuff that had lost potency wasn’t harmful; you just would need to increase the dose a tiny bit. I guess if I were in bad enough shape to need a pill, I would risk it no matter the expiration date- and take my chances.
Excellent comment by Pat.
I believe I mentioned this quite some time ago, but perhaps it’s worth mentioning again. I once was talking to an infectious disease doctor and asked her if overuse of antibiotics was contributing to worsening strains of infections. She repeated a story told by one of the presenters at the infectious disease meetings.
He had been in a hotel and noticed a number of signs advertising antibiotics; he saw there was a meeting. He went in and discovered they were serving Dom Perignon, which he had never seen done before. He was talking to one of the people there, who asked him, “How do you give your antibiotics?” He found it an odd question, but replied, “i.v.” The other person asked, “How much do you use?” He said, “How much do you use?” The answer was “Seven tons.”
He had walked into a veterinarians’ meeting. It turns out they even have color coded salt licks to identify the antibiotic inside. It was quite a revelation.