Pharmacy Mix-Up: Pregnant Woman Given Abortion Drug

Taking any kind of medication while pregnant is scary. I remember being nervous about the anti-convulsants I had to take - drugs that I knew could cause birth defects, but that neither I nor my babies could do without at the time. I remember worrying about the anti-emetics too, and the scare I got over the pharmacist's reaction to the megadoses of folic acid I was prescribed to counterbalance the anti-convulsants.

It was a scary time!

Luckily, my doctors have pretty much always prescribed the right medications in the right doses. And the few times there has been a problem, the pharmacist has caught it & suggested a solution.

Not so for a young pregnant woman in Colorado, who accidentally received and took medication intended for another woman. The pharmacy gave her a drug that could potentially cause a miscarriage, the result of a lapse in following protocols designed to keep us all safe.

Could this happen to you? Of course it could, but there are steps you can take to increase your safety when taking prescription drugs. These steps don't replace the care your doctor and pharmacist should take when giving you medication, but they can help you to catch errors they might otherwise miss, before something tragic happens. Be safe by taking an active role in your own health care.

This content is copyrighted. Please feel free to share by sending others a link to this page, or contact the author about purchasing reprint rights. Thanks to Emily Cahal for the beautiful photo.

Scientists Recognize the Benefits of Psychedelic Drugs

Researchers take a fresh look at psychedelic drugs

While proponents of psychedelics have for decades called the drugs beneficial, serious research has been lacking until recently. The drugs are associated both with the 1960s counterculture, and also with disturbing medical research performed in years past. The CIA's Project MK-ULTRA saw research into various mind-altering substances such as LSD, MDMA, and psilocybin in the 1950s and 1960s. The program was unfortunately also associated with questionable medical ethics both in the United States and in Canada, where experimentation on subjects at Montreal's Allan Memorial Institute was very controversial.

More recent research has been conducted to show that psychedelics and other illicit drugs may have therapeutic benefits, after all. Studies in Switzerland, the United States and elsewhere have shown these drugs could be useful for treating a whole range of conditions. Scientists involved with these research efforts are prompting the world to take a new look at the value of psychedelics.

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Photo credit: Wikipedia user Alan Rockefeller