I'm a pharmacist in TX. We have experienced a large increase in the number of rx's being filled over the last 3 months. Some, voluntarily, will tell you they are worried and are getting extra medicine because of Y2K while others routinely get 3 months of pills at once anyway. Since about 75% of of our business is third party insurance, which generally allows only 1 month of pills per copay, it is easy to spot the "Y2K-concerned" patient because they request a larger supply past what their insurance pays for. In all honesty, I would say about 2-3% of my customer base has requested this. Basically, it doesn't appear the general populace is concerned at all, because medicine would be of vital importance to preperation. I find it interesting that only a few patients are concerned about medicine because I considered this a "litmus" test for public reaction. Either the general public has been truly misinformed by the government or they just don't care to worry about the future. Another concern is the drug supply. My pharmacy (large-chain store) and many other's carry a very small shelf inventory due to shelf-life concerns and pure economics. Most pharmacies carry about a 2 wk-1 month supply of any particular drug. Yes, the drug companies state they have stocked up, but they need to get their product to the market. I brought up this concern to regional managers who assured me that everything will be O.K. and that there will be plenty of drugs in the warehouse (great if your in walking distance to the warehouse). Anyway, if you have any serious illness that requires daily medication (especially diabetes) I urge you to stock up just in case...you'll need that medicine anyway. 75% of dispensed drugs won't really be critical since most health problems will be reduced if Y2K is bad (greasy burgers and fries don't do much for hypertension and cholesterol). At this point our company has experienced many "computer" problems in the past months. dates are screwed up, birthdates are funky, on-line insurance companies have been "down" much more frequently, specific drugs have been in short supply from manufactures (I thought they had a surplus?), telephone refill system is seriously Fubar and a list of other problems as well. Most of these don't matter in pharmacy..we keep meticulous records and we always have hardcopy files of everything in case we get sued. As for me, I live in a suburban area and my largest concern is with the social reaction to anything that occurs in the new year. There will most likely be several large "events" around the world not associated with computers, most likely terrorism. I am fully prepared to weather out 6 months-1 year, but if people go ape-*hit I'm concerned about being in a populated area. I don't think it's the end of the world, but I think that the next few years will be very interesting.

-- Todd D. (tie@flash.net), December 20, 1999

Answers

Good post Todd. What is the inventory status of the following drugs with your company? Xanax, Inderal and Paxil. Seems like there is great concern about availability in some parts of the country. I was able to confirm some stories about Inderal from area pharmacies.

What can you tell folks about the situation from your perspective? Thanks!

-- Irving (irvingf@myremarq.com), December 20, 1999.

I'm not too concerned about shortages of any single medication because the beauty of pharmacy is that there are many types of drugs that can treat any particular disease. If you run out of Inderal (a beta-blocker) there are about 15 or so comparable beta-blockers that in all practicality are basically the same. Even if ALL beta- blockers were unavailable you still have multiple choices to treat a heart/hypertension problem. There are ALWAYS shortages of certain medications due to manufacturing shortages that have never been related to Y2K. Estratest (a female hormone) has been an annoying example the last year..you just couldn't get a supply. I wouldn't worry too much about drug availability...it's the supply chain you have to worry about. The bottom line is that I haven't seen any trend that has worried me the least bit..it's after the rollover that concerns me. If I have no drug to dispense, what good can I do? Guess I'll set up shop on the corner with my mortar and grind some herbal stuff like in the olden days ;) I'll keep ppl updated here after the rollover provided I can get on.

-- Todd D. (tie@flash.net), December 20, 1999.

Todd,

Thanks for your thoughtful post. One reason my doc is giving me more Rx's is cause the C-130 spray is creating neuromuscular probs for me. Like fibromyalgia, but with inflammation. There are lots of folks in my area coming down with these sxs.

BTW fellow conspiracy buffs:

I talked to a friend who worked for the Air Force up to 4 years prior. His job was leading his 5 man team to fill the C-103's! We are in Hampton Roads VA. He said they would fill them with pesticides if the State asked them to spray. We had alot of birds die about 2 months back. He figures autopsies must have been positive for encephalitis, and so the state is having the AF spray to kill those dang misquitoes so we don't have an epidemis here.

Makes sense to me.

When I described my symptoms, he confirmed those were the symptoms of exposure as described to him and his men.

Of course, I'll have to ask him tomorrow about the flight patterns...

-- Hokie (nn@va.com), December 20, 1999.

Sorry, C-130's.

-- Hokie (nn@va.com), December 20, 1999.

You might want to look at the following websites. There are many people developing flu-like syndromes that have been possibly linked to chemtrails that many have observed across the U.S. No one seems to really know what is going on, but it looks pretty suspect. I have seen this myself in TX and can tell you, being a pharmacist, that a respiratory/flu-like syndrome by patients is definately on the rise. Asthma has been seen increasingly in small children at alarming numbers that buck the trends...who knows..funny you should mention that. http://www.contrailconnection.com/ http://www.carnicom.com/contrails.htm http://clubs.yahoo.com/clubs/chemtrailtrackingusa

-- Todd D. (tie@flash.net), December 20, 1999.

After giving up on drugstore.com, I just went to every Wal-Mart, Walgreens, and Smiths pharmacy in my city and split up my large batch of prescriptions into smaller sets. All were filled in less than 2 days (total $1500). Mostly antibiotics.

-- bob (janebob99@aol.com), December 20, 1999.