Prescription Medication

The U.S.-raised animals we eat consumed about 29 million pounds of antibiotics in the last year alone, according to a first-ever Food and Drug Administration accounting of antimicrobial drug use by the American livestock industry. The release of the figures -- in a little-noticed posting on the FDA's website Friday -- came in response to a 2008 law requiring the federal government to collect and disseminate antibiotic use in livestock as part of the Animal Drug User Fee Act . The Union of Concerned Scientists, which authored a 2001 report that was highly critical of the routine practice of feeding antibiotics to livestock, estimated the yearly animal consumption of antibiotics to be eight times as large as the volume of antibiotics produced for human consumption in the U.S. Mardi Mellon, director of the Union of Concerned Scientists' Food and Environment program, said the new report corroborates the 2001 findings of the group's report, titled "Hogging It.

Asthma sufferers have long relied on inhalers for relief from wheezing or coughing attacks. But as of Dec. 31, Primatene Mist -- the only available over-the-counter asthma inhaler -- was taken off shelves because of its adverse effect on the environment. Other inhalers are available, but these require a doctor's prescription. Some people with asthma aren't happy about the change, but lung doctors and asthma specialists agree that Primatene Mist wasn't the best option for patients anyway.

The powerful narcotic popped up on the cultural grid around the turn of the millennium. A Texas producer-remixer named DJ Screw paid homage to its woozy, heavy-lidded high by dramatically slowing down beats and vocals to replicate the drug's sleepwalker euphoria. Among Southern rappers, the chemical mixture - called "sizzurp" on the street - soon became as ubiquitous as gold jewelry. This wasn't some exotic new hallucinogen. In fact, it was usually mixed with fruit soda and sipped from oversized plastic foam cups.

A sex video made by actor Colin Farrell and a Playboy Playmate surfaced Tuesday on the Internet despite a court injunction blocking its release. Word about a website carrying the video featuring Farrell and his then-girlfriend, Nicole Narain, Playboy magazine's Miss January 2002, rapidly spread on the Internet through other websites, including IDontLikeYouIn ThatWay.com, which also posted what it said were video stills of the Irish actor and Narain engaged in sex acts.

A new study suggests that the 6% to 10% of Americans who use prescription sleep medications such as zolpidem (Ambien), temazepam (Restoril), eszopiclone (Lunesta) and zaleplon (Sonata) are more likely to develop cancer, and far more likely to die prematurely, than those who take no sleep aids. The increased rates kick in at really low levels too, the study says. For those prescribed as few as one to 18 sleeping pills in a year, deaths during the period of the new study were more than three and a half times greater than for those who got no such prescriptions, the study says.

Every once in a while, hard science has a cosmetic payoff. We use botulinum toxins to erase wrinkles, and lasers to remove unwanted hair. Now a company called Jane Beauty is promising to apply scientific principles for another purely cosmetic purpose: longer, thicker eyelashes.

Dora Comardo has lived at Laguna Woods Village for 25 years. But she's never seen such traumatic events ? a suicide and a murder-suicide involving elderly victims ? occur so close together in the Orange County community of about 18,000. Comardo, 86, understands the emotional toll of caring for a spouse in failing health. Over a period of six years, she watched her husband's personality change from fun-loving to angry and confused. They had to stop dancing ? their favorite social activity ?

Question: My husband and I have been married for 36 years. We've always had a very satisfying sexual relationship, but over the last several years, he's had increasing difficulty getting and maintaining an erection. We both find this frustrating. I have tried to encourage him all the ways I know how, but he says the problem isn't lack of interest or stimulation. I remember reading something in your column about a drug to counteract impotence, but it didn't seem relevant at the time.

With the launch of the first prescription osteoporosis medication 15 years ago, millions of Americans with the bone-thinning disease began taking the drugs and never looked back. But now many bone-health doctors are looking back and becoming increasingly uneasy. In the last few years, evidence has emerged that long-term use of osteoporosis drugs ? particularly the oldest class of drugs, the bisphosphonates ? may do more harm than good. Some doctors are starting to tell at least some of their patients to stop taking the drugs for a time ?

Kenneth Dean Hunt is no criminal mastermind. He was a handyman, the guy next door, a man with a record of sex crimes and aggressive outbursts. Yet, Hunt, 34, nearly managed to escape justice after raping and killing two women in his neighborhood. His crimes, a decade apart, were decidedly imperfect, but he managed to avoid detection: The first time, a tip pointing in his direction didn't register with police; the second time, investigators didn't realize a murder had occurred.