Friday, August 31, 2012

OPEN for business


I hope you enjoy the changes!  As promised I have a store that's OPEN for business.  Over the next several weeks I will be adding items so keep looking!  By late September there will be some exciting handmade items for gifting...   And there was no nifty website programmer or store designer just lil ole me!  Thanks for taking this journey with me!

Thursday, August 30, 2012

Expired Meds still good?

The Government feels GI Joe can take meds as long as 15 years past the expiration date, then so can we right?  Get smart stockpile your meds  see the link here to the  DOD Shelf Life program

I am offering a re-post of the following article because not only is it a GREAT information, but there is rumor it might disappear from its original source.  All credit is given to the original author Laura P. Cohen and The Wall Street Journal.  Originally published March 29 2000

Drugs Frequently Potent Past Expiration

By Laurie P. Cohen
The Wall Street Journal March 29, 2000
Do drugs really stop working after the date stamped on the bottle? Fifteen years ago, the U.S. military decided to find out.
Sitting on a one billion dollar stockpile of drugs and facing the daunting process of destroying and replacing its supply every two to three years, the military began a testing program to see if it could extend the life of its inventory. The testing, conducted by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, ultimately covered more than 100 drugs, prescription and over-the-counter.
The results, never before reported, show that about 90 percent of them were safe and effective far past their original expiration date, at least one for 15 years past it.
In light of these results, a former director of the testing program, Francis Flaherty, says he has concluded that expiration dates put on by manufacturers typically have no bearing on whether a drug is usable for longer. Mr. Flaherty notes that a drug maker is required to prove only that a drug is still good on whatever expiration date the company chooses to set.
The expiration date doesn't mean, or even suggest, that the drug will stop being effective after that, nor that it will become harmful.

Marketing Issue

"Manufacturers put expiration dates on for marketing, rather than scientific, reasons," says Mr. Flaherty, a pharmacist at the FDA until his retirement last year. "It's not profitable for them to have products on a shelf for 10 years. They want turnover."
The FDA cautions that there isn't enough evidence from the program, which is weighted toward drugs needed during combat and which tests only individual manufacturing batches, to conclude that most drugs in people's medicine cabinets are potent beyond the expiration date.
Still, Joel Davis, a former FDA expiration-date compliance chief, says that with a handful of exceptions - notably nitroglycerin, insulin and some liquid antibiotics - most drugs are probably as durable as those the agency has tested for the military. "Most drugs degrade very slowly," he says. "In all likelihood, you can take a product you have at home and keep it for many years, especially if it's in the refrigerator."

Manufacturers' View

Drug-industry officials don't dispute the results of the FDA's testing, within what is called the Shelf Life Extension Program. And they acknowledge that expiration dates have a commercial dimension. But they say relatively short shelf lives make sense from a public-safety standpoint, as well.
New, more-beneficial drugs can be brought on the market more easily if the old ones are discarded within a couple of years, they say. Label redesigns work better when consumers don't have earlier versions on hand to create confusion.
From the companies' perspective, any liability or safety risk is diminished by limiting the period during which a consumer might misuse or improperly store a drug. "Two to three years is a very comfortable point of commercial convenience," says Mark van Arandonk, senior director for pharmaceutical development at Pharmacia & Upjohn Inc. "It gives us enough time to put the inventory in warehouses, ship it and ensure it will stay on shelves long enough to get used." But companies uniformly deny any effort to spur sales through planned obsolescence.

Why Not Longer?

Now that the FDA has found that many drugs are still good long after they have supposedly expired, why doesn't it advocate later expiration dates for consumer drugs? One reason is that the consumer market lacks the military's logistical reasons to keep drugs around longer.
Frank Holcombe, associate director of the FDA's office of generic drugs, says that in many cases a manufacturer could extend expiration periods again and again, but to support those extensions, it would have to keep doing stability studies, and keep more in storage than it would like.
Mr. Davis adds: "It's not the job of the FDA to be concerned about a consumer's economic interest." It would be up to Congress to impose changes, he says. As things stand now, expiration dates get a lot of emphasis. For instance, there is a campaign, co-sponsored by some drug retailers, that urges people to discard pills when they reach the date on the label.
And that date often is even earlier than the one the maker set. That's because when pharmacists dispense a drug in any container other than what it came to them in, they routinely cut the expiration date to just one year after dispensing. Some states even require pharmacists to do this.
Meanwhile, poor countries - under urging from the World Health Organization - often reject drug-company donations of much-needed medicines if they are within a year of their expiration dates.
It isn't known how much of the $120 billion-plus spent annually in the U.S. on prescription and over-the-counter medicines goes to replace expired ones. But in a poll done for The Wall Street Journal by NPD Group Inc. of Port Washington, N.Y., 70 percent of 1,000 respondents said they probably wouldn't take a prescription drug after its expiration date; 72 percent said the same of an over-the-counter remedy.
"People think that, upon expiration, drugs suddenly turn toxic or lose all their potency," says Philip Alper, professor of medicine at University of California at San Francisco. In his own practice, Dr. Alper says, "I frequently hear - from patients who can't afford medicine - that they have thrown away expired drugs." He says companies should be required to test drugs for longer periods and set later expiration dates when results warrant.
Some manufacturers first began putting expiration dates on drugs in the 1960s, although they didn't have to. When the FDA began requiring such dating in 1979, the main effect was to set uniform testing and reporting guidelines. As now required by the FDA, so-called stability testing analyzes the capacity of a drug to maintain its identity, strength, quality and purity for whatever period the manufacturer picks. If the company picks a two-year expiration date, it needn't test beyond that.
Testing for a two-year expiration doesn't initially entail holding a drug for two years. Rather, the drug is tested by subjecting it to extreme heat and humidity for several months, then chemically analyzing each ingredient's identity and strength. (After the date is set and the drug is marketed, testing continues for the full two years.) The FDA also uses chemical analysis in testing for possible shelf-life extension; it doesn't test on human subjects. Testing conditions are such that any medicine that meets, say, the standards for a two-year expiration date probably lasts longer, the FDA and drug companies agree.

Still Good

Consider aspirin. Bayer AG puts two-year or three-year dates on aspirin and says that it should be discarded after that. Chris Allen, a vice president at the Bayer unit that makes aspirin, says the dating is "pretty conservative"; when Bayer has tested four-year-old aspirin, it remained 100 percent effective, he says.
So why doesn't Bayer set a four-year expiration date? Because the company often changes packaging, and it undertakes "continuous improvement programs," Mr. Allen says. Each change triggers a need for more expiration-date testing, he says, and testing each time for a four-year life would be impractical.
Bayer has never tested aspirin beyond four years, Mr. Allen says. But Jens Carstensen has. Dr. Carstensen, professor emeritus at the University of Wisconsin's pharmacy school, who wrote what is considered the main text on drug stability, says, "I did a study of different aspirins, and after five years, Bayer was still excellent. Aspirin, if made correctly, is very stable."
Only one report known to the medical community linked an old drug to human toxicity. A 1963 Journal of the American Medical Association article said degraded tetracycline caused kidney damage. Even this study, though, has been challenged by other scientists. Mr. Flaherty says the Shelf Life program encountered no toxicity with tetracycline and typically found batches effective for more than two years beyond their expiration dates.

Plea from the Air Force

The program dates to a U.S. effort begun in 1981 to increase military readiness by buying large quantities of drugs and medical devices for the armed forces. Four years later, more than one billions dollars of supplies had been stockpiled. The General Accounting Office audited Air Force troop hospitals in Europe and found many supplies at or near expiration. It warned that by the 1990s, more than $100 million would have to be spent yearly on replacements.
The Air Force Surgeon General's office asked the FDA if it could possibly extend the shelf life of these drugs. The FDA had the equipment for stability testing. And because it had approved the drugs' sale in the first place, it also had manufacturers' data on the testing protocols. Testing for the Air Force began in late 1985. In the first year, 58 medicines from 137 different manufacturing lots were shipped to the FDA from overseas storage, among them penicillin, lidocaine and Lactated Ringers, an intravenous solution for dehydration. After testing, the FDA extended more than 80% of the expired lots, by an average of 33 months.
In 1992, according to the FDA, more than half of the expired drugs that had been retested in 1985 were still fine. Even now, at least one still is. Such results came as a revelation for Army Col. George Crawford when he took over military oversight of the program in 1997. He is a pharmacist, but "nobody tells you in pharmacy school that shelf life is about marketing, turnover and profits," he says. (The drug makers don't agree that it is, however.)

How It Works

The military's base for the program is a dingy barracks room in Fort Detrick, Md. There, a group headed by Air Force Lt. Col. Greg Russie, who recently took over from Col. Crawford, tracks drugs that are near expiration at defense facilities all over the world, selecting many for retesting. They are shipped to the FDA, which sends them to its laboratories.
The FDA's lab in Philadelphia recently tested five automatic injectors containing an antidote to chemical poisoning, which were purposely held for three months in conditions even hotter and more humid than the FDA requires in consumer testing of drugs. The FDA tested the drug contained in the injectors, pralidoxime chloride, by separating its ingredients and measuring the strength and quality of each, then applying a computer model to determine whether a shelf-life extension was warranted.
The injectors' original expiration date was November 1985. The FDA had retested them periodically ever since, each time approving their continued use. The batch, made by Ayerst Laboratories, now part of American Home Products Corp.'s Wyeth-Ayerst unit, is 18 years old. It is 15 years beyond the expiration date applied by Ayerst. The FDA found it is still good.
A spokesman for Wyeth-Ayerst says it "uses scientific data to establish expiration dates" and "tries to have the longest possible dating on products that scientific data supports." The company is aware of the FDA retesting program. It says it can't comment specifically on the injectors tested by the FDA.

A Few Fail

Shelf-life extensions are "intentionally conservative," the FDA's Mr. Flaherty told military brass in a 1992 speech. He says that if the agency extended an expiration date by 36 months, it had concluded the lot would retain all of its safety and efficacy for at least 72 months. A very few drugs aren't retested. The military has found that water-purification tablets and mefloquine hydrochloride, for malaria, routinely fail stability testing beyond their expiration dates, so it has removed them from the program.
Also excluded are large-volume intravenous solutions, such as saline. "We don't like to test those," says Col. Crawford. "Not because we can't, but because it would be politically sensitive if G.I. Joe was lying in bed and saw it had originally expired three years ago."
Mr. Flaherty has said that while he tested a handful of drug batches that didn't even make it to their expiration dates, most drugs were "surprisingly durable." In one instance, he says, drugs labeled for room-temperature storage had been kept for two years in a warehouse in Oman that averaged 135 degrees Fahrenheit in the daytime. Upon expiration, the drugs, which included the local anesthetic lidocaine and atropine, a nerve-gas antidote also used by eye doctors to dilate pupils, "were well within the standards for potency and other quality characteristics," he says.

Stable Molecule

One medicine the FDA has endorsed for extensions is ciprofloxacin hydrochloride tablets, an antibiotic marketed by Bayer as Cipro. One batch had an expiration date of March 1989. More than 9 1/2 years later, the FDA found the tablets still good; it then extended some of them for 18 more months and others for 24 more months.
Albert Poirier, quality-assurance director for Bayer's pharmaceutical division, says he isn't surprised because Cipro "is a stable drug molecule" in tablet form. "We go for a shelf life that will be safest for patients," he says. "We want the drug to be used up within three years. We wouldn't want a patient to have it for 10 years because they'd have an old package insert" that might omit new information or contra-indications and because "we'd have no control over how they'd store the drug during this time."
Another extended drug is Thorazine, a tranquilizer chemically known as chlorpromazine tablets. Batches bearing December 1996 expiration dates - unused and unopened, as is the case with all drugs evaluated in the Shelf Life program - were tested in July 1998 and extended for two years. A spokesman for the maker, SmithKline Beecham PLC, says it applies an expiration date 24 months after manufacture. "We think that is the appropriate expiration date," he says. "We don't benefit from short expiration dates."
Some other drugs the FDA has extended at least two years beyond their expiration dates are diazepam, sold as Valium; cimetidine, sold as Tagamet; phenytoin, sold as Dilantin; and the antibiotics tetracycline and penicillin.

Big Savings

On a cost-benefit basis, the program's returns have been huge. The first year, the Air Force paid the FDA $78,000 for testing and saved 59 times that sum by not needing to replace the drugs. After other services joined, the military from 1993 through 1998 spent about $3.9 million on testing and saved $263.4 million on drug expense, according to Lt. Col. Russie.
Says Mr. Flaherty: "We've cost the pharmaceutical companies hundreds of millions of dollars in sales of new stuff to the Department of Defense." More than 12 years ago, Messrs. Flaherty and Davis explained the program to drug-company chemists at a meeting of the American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists in Woodbridge, N.J., going into detail about how the FDA decided whether to extend a given expiration date. Mr. Davis concluded by noting how much the U.S. had saved by extending shelf lives instead of "destroying large quantities of still-useful medical products..."
Mr. Flaherty says the FDA was keenly aware that if its methodology was flawed, or its results incorrect even once, its credibility would be attacked. Yet FDA officials say that during the program's 15 years, drug makers have never objected to any of its procedures or findings. "They may not have liked what we were doing, but they weren't able to challenge it," he says.

The Message to Civilians

While the military is finding it can keep most drugs longer, civilians hear quite a different message. For instance, a campaign called the National Expired and Unused Medication Drive has collected and destroyed 36 tons of drugs since 1991, says its founder, Kathilee Champlin. Ms. Champlin, of Colorado Springs, Colo., says her interest derives from experience working with the elderly and seeing how hard it was for them to keep track of all their medications. She says she wasn't aware of any FDA program to extend drugs' shelf lives.
Her group has gained sponsorship from the some big drug retailers, including Wal-Mart Stores Inc. It sponsors the campaign to be "a good corporate citizen," says Frank Seagrave, vice president of pharmacy merchandising. "
We believe that people should dispose of unused prescription medicines a year after they get them," he says, adding that Wal-Mart sometimes gives people a free bottle of vitamins if they bring in expired drugs.
Many pharmacists also play a role in shelf lives. The U.S. Pharmacopeia, a not-for-profit scientific group that develops standards for the drug industry, urged in 1985 that pharmacists set expiration dates at no more than one year if they were dispensing drugs in a bottle other than the manufacturer's original packaging. "New containers may let in more moisture and heat than the container the manufacturer used for the stability study," accelerating the drug's degradation, says the USP General Counsel Joseph Valentino.
The recommendation became a USP requirement in 1997. As a result, "the majority of pharmacists shorten the manufacturers' expiration dates" on prescription drugs to one year or less, says Susan Winckler, an official of the American Pharmaceutical Association. In fact, in 17 states, pharmacists now are legally required to do so. Ms. Winckler says shortening the dates makes sense because many people store drugs in moist bathrooms. She says the one-year rule is "motivated by product integrity and not by profit."
By Dr. Mercola
We can clearly gain some valuable insights from this incredible piece in the Wall Street Journal and sent in by ever-diligent Michael Belkin.The key from the article is "shelf life is about marketing, turnover and profits." Over the course of the past two decades, U.S. spending on prescription drugs increased from $40 billion to more than $230 billion. If drug companies convince you to empty out your medicine cabinets annually, those profit margins could increase even more.
I find it absolutely incredible that the military spent from 1993 through 1998 about $3.9 million on testing and saved $263.4 million on drug expense. So, on a personal level, unless you have nitroglycerin, insulin and liquid antibiotics, you may be able to use your medications far beyond the expiration date on the bottle. I believe the major tragedy is that many Third World countries needlessly discard the drugs that are sent to them and could actually be saving lives due to lack of appreciation of this concept.


Dr. Mercola's Comments:
Follow Dr. Mercola on Twitter Follow Dr. Mercola on Facebook


The key from the article is "shelf life is about marketing, turnover and profits. I find it absolutely incredible that the military spent from 1993 through 1998 about $3.9 million on testing and saved $263.4 million on drug expense.
We can clearly gain some valuable insights from this incredible piece in the Wall Street journal and sent in by ever diligent Michael Belkin.
Unless you have nitroglycerin, insulin and liquid antibiotics, you can pretty much be safely assured that your medication expires years beyond the date it says it does. I believe the major tragedy is that many Third World countries needlessly discard the drugs that are sent to them and could actually be saving lives due to lack of appreciation of this concept.


Wednesday, August 29, 2012

Sweet without sugar

Stevia seeds are so tiny, you have to be extra careful when handling them.

Paper towel method:
Place seeds you want to germinate in to a moist paper towel. You must to keep them in a warm place. Start indoors 8-10 weeks before last anticipated frost. Lightly cover and keep moist.

To retain moisture, simply put your wet paper towel within a ziploc plastic bag at germination, the outside shell of the seed splits and a tiny, white sprout called taproot pops out. When you see those little taproots coming out of the seeds, gently place them(root down) in to the soil Place in a south facing window or under grow lights until seedlings emerge. Seedlings emerge in 7-14 days.

Keep your soil equally moist for the next few weeks. Don't drown them! Over watering presents a big problem Transplant to individual containers when seedlings have at least two pairs of leaves. Be careful not to overwater your stevia. Only give them a drink when you need to prevent wilting. Before transplanting into the garden, but after the last frost, "harden off" plants by setting in a shady location outdoors for one week. After last frost, set plants out in the garden, spacing 18" apart.

Stevia is ready for harvest 40 days after transplanting. Or keep it as a plant ...This herb is 300 times sweeter than sugar. The small, green leaves are a sugar-free natural sweetener. Try fresh leaves in drinks or as an edible garnish. To make Stevia powder, dry individual leaves on screens or pull the entire plant and hang to dry. Store dried, crushed leaves in a airtight container

 

According to HealthFA.com:
Studies have shown the following benefits from using Stevia in your diet.

> Sugarless with no calories
> Will not affect blood sugar levels (neither up or down)
> 100% Natural
> Up to 300 times sweeter than sugar
> Heat and freezer stable (ideal for cooking, baking and freezing)
> Non-fermentable
> Flavour enhancer
> Plaque retardant Anti-caries (prevents cavities)
> Recommended for diabetics
> Non-toxic
> Extensively tested in humans and animals with no adverse effects.

Now that's what I call SWEET! 


Saturday, August 18, 2012

Don't forget shoes!

The number one item missing from stockpiles everywhere....Shoes.
Yes SHOES.

You may consider yourself to be a well stocked prepper, you have a bag in your car, a different bag at home, first aid kits, food, TP... Now I ask you this... Do you have appropriate footwear in your bag to get you home if you are in dress shoes and you have to WALK home or to the nearest gas station etc?  Now there's a foot of snow... are those shoes still the right shoes?  6 inches of water....  are they STILL the right pair of shoes?  Maybe.  Maybe not.  For adults this is an easy enough fix because our feet don't change too much.  But what about your kids Nieces, nephews, grandchildren?

Have you stockpiled basic outfits for all seasons for each child for at least 3 to 5years?  Did you include the next several sizes of shoes too? Coats/Jackets?  Gloves?  If the world goes sideways I want our children to have the basics covered.   You can do this by shopping at Good Will stores this month all kid clothing is $0.49 per item  Remember there are season "extras"  Here's a hint try and buy coats bigger so kids can wear them for 2 years at a time (example you child wears a size 3 so buy 3 coats in size 4,6,8 then you have child covered for 6 years. ) A new wardrobe for each child can be obtained for as little as $20 from Good Will this month. This basic wardrobe includes ~ a coat, 2 hoodies, windbreaker, gloves, hat, 3 pairs of shoes, 5 pairs of jeans, 5 pairs of shorts, 7 long sleeve shirts, 7 short sleeve shirts, 6 sets of PJs (3 summer, 3 winter) keep in mind buying the coat, hoodies, and windbreaker can be worn for 2 years if you get larger size will reduce the cost of the next years "wardrobe". For each child my goal is to have 4-5 years of a basic wardrobe stockpiled. I can do this for $80 for each child   We always buy panties and socks new these will be the most expensive items to stockpile.  

Yes my kids get new clothes and new shoes for school... but I can't afford to stockpile 5 years of brand new clothes so, if the world goes sideways at least they won't be naked or barefoot! Bonus ~ no one will care where I got their jeans! 

Don't forget the shoes!

Monday, August 13, 2012

All servings aren't created equal...

How many servings per person should you store? Well a can of Spaghetti-Os says it will feed two people.... but my kids can kill a can in a sitting.  When you eat, how many "servings" do you really eat?  Do you know how many calories you'd need in a day if the whole world goes sideways?  Don't let an emergency food provider sell you on the idea of one serving per person.  When you're buying remember:
  • Men/teenagers usually will need 2 servings
  • Women 1.5 servings
  • Children under seven 1 serving

Someone who is really working (physical labor) needs more than an office worker sitting all day.  My grandfather often talked about a "working man's meal" ...  those folks working hard physically need 5000 to 6000 calories a day to have the energy to work.  So if the whole world goes sideways and your planning on splitting wood, gardening, raising chickens, walking instead of driving....   you will need MORE food than you do right now in modern society.  It also needs to be higher QUALITY calories...  A box of Twinkies while tasty, doesn't have the needed nutrition. Focus on protein.  Do you have a year of protein stored?  No?  Figure out how much meat you THINK you need and add more. Remember to always do the math.  We use 2 pounds of chicken per meal for our group.  If I was going to have half our supper meals as chicken, I'd need 2 LB x 7 meals x 26 weeks or 364 pounds of chicken. The other half of our protein will be turkey and various cuts of beef .  You need a personal plan on your family's protein.... that's your homework for the week.

Even though I won't be pressure canning all our meat, I will keep enough jars on hand so if our freezer goes out and we lose the backup generator I will have the ability to can whatever is in the freezers so I won't loose our protein.

Once you start obtaining your protein you'll want to store it a couple of different ways here are some ideas:

  • Can it at home (requires pressure canner and glass jars)
  • Freeze it raw (Use a Vac sealer to protect your investment)
  • Cook some of it, then freeze it already cooked
If the whole world goes sideways having a year's supply of protein stored gives you time to find an alternate source of meat while not worrying about your family starving.