E-drug: Research assistance - drugs in relief setting
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[Nathan's previous message appeared on 11 March (Request for research
assistance - expired drugs). Please respond directly to Nathan if you have
anything to contribute. It is probably useful to know that he is a student
of anthropology. KM]
Dear e-druggers,
My research has broadened somewhat and since I probably scared some of you
off, judging from the "overwhelming" reply I got to some of the more
specific and technical questions I put forth last round, here's a
generalized list of questions. Again, I would welcome any first hand
observations or comments relating to an of the following topics. I do have
an updated bibliography, that has roughly doubled in size from when I was
sending it out before, but it is still being updated. If you are interested
in this area, please contact me and I will send you a copy of the new one.
I am interested in the following areas, what I refer to as "austere
pharmacology". This is when you do not have the drugs you need to treat an
illness or you are unsure of the drugs you have due to environmental
factors, the expiration date or the appearance of the drugs. More
specifically:
- The stability of drugs in tropical climates
- Use of drugs past their expiration date (what is the actual shelf life of
a substance vs. the manufactures "expiration date")
- Inspection and testing of drugs to determine identity, potency and
degradation
- Local production of drugs, to include medical botany.
- Expedients or "survival medicine". What is done if you do not have a
therapeutic agent.
- Storage and distribution conditions and practices to prevent drugs from
going bad in the first place
- Dual use or "off label" prescribing - using drugs for their side effects.
- Identification of drugs and critical information, such as expiration
date, storage conditions and manufacturing date that is in a foreign
language or a code you do not understand.
- The percentage of time when expired drugs must be resorted to (survey -
7%) or when no drugs in a therapeutic class are available (single data
point - 20%) as well as the percentage of counterfeit drugs on the market
(WHO worldwide estimate: 10%, but 60-70% in parts of Africa).
- I would be interested in any information, research or references you have
on the above topics.
thank you,
Nathan Estey
nfe2@comcast.net
student, University of Maryland
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