This packaging seems incredibly wasteful
I think in this case the benefits might outweigh any downsides. Taking the correct medication as perscribed is a major source of stress and problems for many people.
> Medication non adherence in patients leads to substantial worsening of disease, death and increased health care costs.
> and sometimes involves individual constraints (e.g. poor inhaler technique, problems remembering doses etc).
> A third type of non adherence is known as non conforming, this type includes a variety of ways in which medication are not taken as prescribed, this behavior can range from skipping doses, to taking medications at incorrect times or at incorrect doses, to even taking more than prescribed.
There were tons of leftovers in the EU, where I lived before - that's wasteful. Not a little bit of plastic.
> first [Canadian] National Prescription Drug Drop-Off Day, which resulted in the return of more than two tonnes of unused medications
> The first is inertia: it takes effort to discard something, but no effort to leave it where it is. The second is a natural inclination to keep something that might be useful later on, particularly if future procurement involves inconvenience or expense.
Every single person I know has a drug drawer with expired drugs.
Picking up common prescription medication consists of me walking into a pharmacy - any pharmacy! - with my prescription, handing it to them, and telling them "one of this please". They will then immediately retrieve the pack of that medicine, ask me some questions to check for allergies etc. and hand it to me. I don't have to have the prescription sent to a specific pharmacy then wait for them to have the bottle ready and verified by a pharmacist.
In the US, finding 1000 count (!) bottles is easy: https://www.cvs.com/shop/cvs-health-extra-strength-acetamino...
https://www.cnn.com/2013/02/08/health/us-uk-pain-sgmd/index....
On top of which, the maximum daily dose listed by many generics is not considered safe: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3585765/
Do you really think someone intent on killing himself will look at a blister pack and think, "You know, if this was in a bottle I'd go through with it, but this doesn't seem worth it, it's way too much work to take me own life"?
It doesn't sound like you know much about suicide research? Preferring to substitute your own guesses on a well researched topic.
It claims the previous higher maximum was anecdotally established but later supported as safe by multiple studies and the reason for the article seems to be concern that the new lower maximums could cause confusion in patients and doctors.
Wonder how much - very expensive - medication is wasted in the world.
That can be easier said than done with arthritis, vision issues and cognitive impairment, which isn't exactly uncommon with older patients.
My grandmother get her medicines re-boxed by my mother and I don't think she'd manage it on her own.
Traditional blister packing has been around for years, this isn’t a novel idea. This is just a wasteful implementation
A lot of expensive medication is cheap to manufacture. The money goes to R&D and profits (similar to software). For those medications it's likely that reduced waste would lead to the manufacturer raising the price, keeping the total cost similar.
Nonetheless, it would be interesting to see this made of paper.