Antibiotics Expert

If you hear of thousands of people dying in one year from drugs, you may automatically think the deaths were probably due to overdoses of addictive and illegal substances like heroin or methamphetamines, or from tainted prescription drugs. But in China, 80,000 people are dying annually from legal medications often inaccurately thought of as a “cure-all” against infections — antibiotics.

Chinese medical experts recently came up with that startling figure after investigating the deaths of 200,000 Chinese citizens . According to reports in several Chinese newspapers, including China Youth Daily, the researchers found 40 percent of the fatalities were due to the over-prescription and misuse of antibiotics. Read the rest of this entry »

It was hard to miss the 5-foot-tall sign in front of the pharmacy department at the Stop & Shop in Union.

And just above the announcement, these words: “You didn’t pay for the germs, why pay for the antibiotics?”

Stop & Shop pharmacies became the first grocery chain in New Jersey to give away free antibiotics starting Jan. 2 to customers with a prescription. Less than a week later, Wegman’s announced its own no-cost antibiotics program, and on Friday, ShopRite joined the budding trend.

“People are coming from everywhere,” said Shilvanti Patel, a pharmacist at the Union Stop & Shop. “We’re getting a very, very positive response from it. Even doctors are calling to find out about the program.”

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