Dr. J's SOAP Notes

Thursday, May 10, 2007

May 2, 2007— The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is warning consumers and healthcare professionals of the risk for obtaining counterfeit drugs when purchasing prescription medications online, according to a news release. The alert was based on information regarding 24 apparently related Web sites that appear on the pharmacycall365.com home page under the "Our Websites" heading, according to an alert sent yesterday from MedWatch, the FDA's safety information and adverse event reporting program. On 3 recent occasions, the FDA was informed that counterfeit versions of orlistat 120-mg capsules (Xenical; Hoffmann-La Roche, Inc) were being supplied by 2 of the Web sites. None of the capsules contained orlistat; one contained sibutramine (Meridia; Abbott Laboratories, Inc) and the others were filled with talc and starch. The latter were provided in blister packs stamped with a valid Roche lot number but displaying an expiration date of April 2007 rather than March 2005. The counterfeit products cannot be differentiated on sight alone as they closely resemble legitimate products (photos are available at http://www.fda.gov/bbs/topics/news/photos/xenical.html).The Web sites involved in distributing the counterfeit orlistat capsules were Brandpills.com and PillsPharm.com, which appear on the same pharmacycall365.com page that is home to 22 other Web sites, 4 of which previously have been linked to shipments of counterfeit oseltamivir phosphate (Tamiflu; Roche Laboratories, Inc) and tadalafil (Cialis, Lilly ICOS, LLC).These include AllPills.net, Pharmacy-4U.net, DirectMedsMall.com, Emediline.com, RX-ed.com, RXePharm.com, Pharmacea.org, MensHealthDrugs.net, BigXplus.net, MediClub.md, InterTab.de, Pillenpharm.com, Bigger-X.com, PillsLand.com, EZMEDZ.com, UnitedMedicals.com, est-Medz.com, USAPillsrx.net, USAMedz.com, BluePills-Rx.com, Genericpharmacy.us, and I-Kusuri.jp.According to the FDA, the Web sites appear to operate from outside the United States. Consumers should therefore be wary if the company cannot be contacted by phone, if their prices appear to be extremely low, or if no prescription is required. Additional information regarding the purchase of prescription drugs over the Internet may be obtained online at www.fda.gov/buyonline/. Healthcare professionals are encouraged to report potentially counterfeit drugs to the FDA's MedWatch reporting program by phone at 1-800-FDA-1088, by fax at 1-800-FDA-0178, online at http://www.fda.gov/medwatch, or by mail to 5600 Fishers Lane, Rockville, MD 20852-9787.

1 comment:

ZennieSunday, May 27, 2007 1:17:00 PM
Thanks for this, as my Mom, a cancer survivor, is constantly researching meds online.
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Who is Dr. J

Background:

She is originally from Spencer, Iowa. Malea is a graduate of Wartburg College in Waverly, Iowa. She attended medical school at the University of Osteopathic Medicine in Des Moines, Iowa. She graduated from her Family Practice Residency program at Iowa Lutheran Hospital in Des Moines, Iowa in 1998.
In her spare time, Malea trains clients on physical activity and nutrition, spends time with friends and her wonderful father, and loves to watch football. What is better than bodybuilding? “Wolverine football on Saturday and Vikings football on Sunday!” Malea also loves basketball as March Madness rounds out a wonderful basketball season. As you may have guessed, Malea is very sports oriented, having been a four-sport athlete in high school, and a three-sport athlete in college.

Why I do what I do:

Jensen approaches her medical practice with the same determination as anything else she does. “The effort to understand how to promote more active lifestyles has been of great importance to the health of this nation. Schools, workplaces, and families need to weave physical activity into the fabric of their daily lives. The key to lifetime fitness is consistency!”

What I Do Away From Work

Dr. Malea Jensen is the total package. She’s exceptionally bright. She’s remarkably attractive. She’s a doctor. She’s a bodybuilder. “I have been competing in bodybuilding since 1996,” Jensen explains. “Bodybuilding was never a whim”, Jensen says. “I have always admired men and women with muscle. Initially, it was not my ambition to get up on stage and pose, but this has been a way to extend my competitiveness. It is an ambition of mine to keep fit and look lean, with muscular detail.”

She credits her father for pushing her to “give 100 percent,” whether it was school, work, or one of the many sports at which she excelled.

Mission Trips

Why does Dr. J go on mission trips? You are probably thinking I go so I can do medical work. It’s funny, our culture has formed us from our earliest days to see our significance in terms of WHAT we do. It is old school thinking that mission work is all about giving and doing for the poor. This is true to a certain degree. Missionaries, when asked if they were successful during their mission trip, often speak of their success by what they have done, whether spiritually or materially. But really our significance as people comes not from what we do, but from WHO we are. So, to answer why I go on mission trips...it is for nothing less than for the sake of conversion...my own conversion! This conversion has to do with a change in the way that I view my own life - what I do, what I have, who I count as friends, what questions I ask myself, what issues I pay attention to, who and what I give my allegiance to. In essence, I have to leave my world where I have control and go someplace I have never been...to a place where I am poor and powerless. It is hard to do this at “home.”
Any time you enter a third world country, you will see the poor, but more importantly, you enter into the world of a deprived people and share not only their pain and struggle, but also their hope! To see this is so amazing!