Prescription Drugs

IT'S BEEN four decades since the dawning of the Age of Aquarius, but aging baby boomers haven't stopped turning on. The federal government's National Survey on Drug Use and Health, released earlier this month, finds that as boomers move into their 50s in large numbers, drug use among older adults in the United States has hit its highest point ever. In the government's latest report -- reflecting drug use in 2007 -- 1 in 20 Americans ages 50 to 59 told researchers they had taken illicit drugs in the last month.

As if there wasn't enough to worry about on the healthcare front, now comes yet another report of counterfeit prescription drugs being found. The Food and Drug Administration is warning doctors and hospitals that, for the second time this year, it's come across a batch of bogus Avastin, a drug used to treat cancers of the colon, lung, kidney and brain. This obviously has enormous ramifications for patients. At best, they could take a medicine that has no effect. At worst, they could experience even more medical trouble.

Prescriptions for painkillers -- left over from surgeries, orthopedic injuries or dental work -- frequently languish, unfinished, in family medicine chests. Supplies of anti-anxiety medications, including the benzodiazepines known by their commercial names Xanax and Ativan, take up shelf space because they are prescribed for episodic use. And as a growing number of adults are diagnosed with ADHD, their stimulant medication often sits alongside that of their children with attention difficulties.

Medco Health Solutions has agreed to pay $2.75 million and change its internal procedures to settle claims that it paid millions in bribes to win a contract to provide prescription drugs to members of the California Public Employees' Retirement System. The settlement was the latest development in a case that began in 2004 and involved allegations of dealings between the then-head of CalPERS, Federico Buenrostro Jr., and a paid Medco consultant and former CalPERS board member, Alfred J.R. Villalobos, who helped secure the $26-million contract in 2006.

Propelled by an increase in prescription narcotic overdoses, drug deaths now outnumber traffic fatalities in the United States, a Times analysis of government data has found. Drugs exceeded motor vehicle accidents as a cause of death in 2009, killing at least 37,485 people nationwide, according to preliminary data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. While most major causes of preventable death are declining, drugs are an exception. The death toll has doubled in the last decade, now claiming a life every 14 minutes.

The heavily advertised drug Vytorin is no better than an inexpensive generic drug at blocking the damaging effects of high cholesterol levels, according to new data released by the drug's manufacturers Monday. In a study of 720 patients funded by the manufacturers, Vytorin -- a combination of the drugs simvastatin and ezetemibe -- reduced levels of LDLs, the so-called bad cholesterol, by about 29% more than simvastatin alone.

The Internet has already changed how people shop for books, music, cars and a host of other consumer goods. Next up: prescription drugs. Or so the founders of a Santa Monica start-up called GoodRx are hoping. "There's no other site like it that we know of," said Scott Marlette, a former Facebook employee who's hoping to hit it big again with his new company. "We wanted to create a product where people can find the best pharmacy to go to. " GoodRx, based in a modest office building shared with other tech and media companies, has already attracted some big-name investors, including former Disney President Michael Ovitz and a handful of heavyweight venture-capital funds.

About 4 million adult Americans with a mild form of asthma may not need to take daily steroid doses, but instead can use the drug only as needed to control symptoms, says a new study supported by the National Institutes of Health. The change would make drug use more convenient, minimize side effects from the powerful drugs and possibly save the nation as much as $2 billion per year, the study concludes.

Until recently, post-menopausal women seeking treatment for osteoporosis had few options other than estrogen replacement and calcium supplements. Both are still widely used, but they've been augmented by several new and immensely profitable medications that retard bone loss and prevent fractures. Women who take any of these prescription drugs also must be sure to get at least 1,200 mg of calcium from food and supplements and at least 400 international units of vitamin D.

The drug that Rep. Patrick J. Kennedy (D-R.I.) said he took to treat an inflamed stomach is commonly used to control the nausea from prescription painkillers and rarely used for stomach ailments, experts said Friday. Phenergan is also sometimes used by drug abusers to enhance their highs from opium-derived painkillers, such as OxyContin and Vicodin, said Dr. Bankole Johnson, an addiction expert at the University of Virginia.

The price of drugs widely used by elderly Americans grew by almost double the rate of inflation from 2005 to 2009, according to a new study by the AARP. The average retail price over the five-year period for the 469 drugs most often used by AARP members grew by 25.6%, compared to the 13.3% rise in inflation over the same period, according to the report. The report also says that 406 of the 469 most commonly used drugs are used to treat chronic conditions and that the average cost of taking such medicines for chronic conditions was $1,152 higher in 2009 than it was five years earlier.

The Internet has already changed how people shop for books, music, cars and a host of other consumer goods. Next up: prescription drugs. Or so the founders of a Santa Monica start-up called GoodRx are hoping. "There's no other site like it that we know of," said Scott Marlette, a former Facebook employee who's hoping to hit it big again with his new company. "We wanted to create a product where people can find the best pharmacy to go to. " GoodRx, based in a modest office building shared with other tech and media companies, has already attracted some big-name investors, including former Disney President Michael Ovitz and a handful of heavyweight venture-capital funds.

The investigation into the death of Whitney Houston is shifting to a new phase, with officials focusing on the prescription drugs found in her hotel room and who prescribed them to her. Investigators are expected in the next few days to serve subpoenas on the doctors, as well as the pharmacies where Houston obtained the prescriptions, as they try to determine her cause of death, according to a source with knowledge of the case. Authorities collected several bottles of drugs from Houston's suite at the Beverly Hilton Hotel, where she was found dead Saturday.

Whitney Houston was found underwater in the bathtub of a Beverly Hills hotel suite, authorities said Monday as they continued to investigate her death, including examining prescription drugs found in her room. Authorities have collected several bottles of drugs from Houston's suite at the Beverly Hilton Hotel, law enforcement sources told The Times. But the sources stressed that the amount of drugs did not seem unusually large, and it remained unclear whether the drugs had anything to do with her death.

A satisfied patient is not a cheaper patient: however important such a finding may be in these budget-constrained times, that comes as little surprise. More unexpected is the finding that a satisfied patient is not necessarily a healthier patient -- that the patient happy with the medical attention he or she receives from a physician is more likely to die than the patient who grumbles about it. Yet both findings emerge from a study published "online first" on Monday in the Archives of Internal Medicine . The authors -- four family medicine doctors at UC Davis -- suggest that in a healthcare marketplace in which Americans often choose their doctors in the same way they choose a plumber or an electrician, physicians may have gotten a little too eager to please their "customers.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration prohibited some unapproved uses of antibiotics in livestock on Wednesday. Farmers will no longer be able to administer a class of antibiotics called cephalosporins to cattle, pigs, chicken and turkeys in unapproved doses or frequencies, or as a means of preventing disease, the agency said. Also prohibited: using drugs not originally intended for use in livestock. Some limited extra-label use will still be permitted, including prescription drugs in less-commonly eaten animals such as rabbits and ducks.

A powerful and potentially addictive painkiller used by millions of Americans is causing rapid hearing loss, even deafness, in some patients who are misusing the drug, according to hearing researchers in Los Angeles and elsewhere. So far, at least 48 patients have been identified by doctors at the House Ear Institute in Los Angeles and several other medical centers who have treated patients with sudden hearing loss.

In the current tough economy, some people are trying to save money by forgoing prescription medicines. A survey of just over 1,200 people conducted and released in February by the Kaiser Family Foundation found that 53% had cut back on healthcare spending during the last 12 months because of cost concerns. Of those surveyed, 21% had not filled a drug prescription and 15% had skipped drug doses or split pills.

Pharmacy and prescription drug management company CVS Caremark Corp. has agreed to pay nearly $20 million to settle three lawsuits involving allegations that it defrauded pension systems in three states, including California's giant pension fund, attorneys said. The whistle-blower lawsuits, filed by two former CVS Caremark pharmacists, accused the company of reselling returned drugs, changing prescription orders to make them more expensive and submitting false reports about how long it took to fill prescriptions.