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I had an architect practically come out and tell me I'm stupid. Actually he was talking about all pharmacists and he didn't use the word stupid, but his message was very clear.

The United States Pharmacopeia has given Uncle Sam its final model guidelines of the therapeutic categories and drug classes insurers may use as a template to build their formularies under the Medicare prescription drug benefit.

A recent trend toward greater oversight of technicians continued last year as more state pharmacy boards acted to bring the pharmacist's chief helper into the regulatory fold, according to the 2005 National Association of Boards of Pharmacy Survey of Pharmacy Law.

The human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) may be the closest thing to a perfect virus we have encountered. It is variable, it destroys the patient's defenses, it can hide, and it allows time to spread before it kills. Fortunately, it is not highly infectious. Over the past year, there have been a multitude of clinical trials studying various antiretroviral therapies resulting in an accumulation of data. So much so that the Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) has released its newly revised Guidelines for Antiretroviral Agents in HIV-1 Infected Adults and Adolescents for review and comment even though it released the last version just this past March.

Overactive bladder (OAB) is a condition that affects an estimated 33 million Americans. At least 16% of the population over the age of 40 is affected by the chronic symptoms of OAB.

Insomnia is one of the most common sleep disturbances in the United States, affecting an estimated 100 million Americans. According to the 2002 Sleep in America poll from the National Sleep Foundation, 58% of adults experience symptoms of insomnia a few nights or more per week at some point in their lives. The total economic costs associated with insomnia have been estimated at $17.5 billion.

The black eye the FDA received recently over its handling of Vioxx (rofecoxib, Merck) and antidepressants hasn't slowed the agency's new drug approval rate for 2004. It cleared 31 new molecular entities (NMEs) last year, up from 21 in 2003.

Pharmacy groups that had been hoping the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) would set up each state as a separate Medicare prescription drug plan (PDP) region got half a loaf. The agency named 25 states as stand-alone areas, but the rest were grouped into nine regions to be served by plans offering the Rx benefit beginning January 2006.

Hepatitis B virus (HBV) is a major healthcare problem around the world. It is estimated that 350 million to 400 million people are chronically infected. The development and approval of oral antihepatitis B virus agents, lamivudine, and, more recently, adefovir dipivoxil, revolutionized the treatment of chronic hepatitis B. However, the emergence of resistant HBV mutants remains the main factor limiting the efficacy of antiviral therapy.With lamivudine, the problem of resistance is very frequent and progressively increases with prolongation of therapy (> 50% at three years).

If you think the Medicare discount cards were confusing when they took effect last year, wait till the Part D drug benefit starts up in 2006, warned Philip Burgess, R.Ph., national director of pharmacy affairs at Walgreen Co. It might be a good idea for community pharmacists to take cover on Jan. 1, 2006, or better still, go on leave for the whole month of January, he quipped.

Do you routinely check the inactive ingredients of a drug product? Do you routinely ask patients about food allergies in addition to drug-related allergies? If you answered no to these questions, then you may not be aware that some patients with food allergies may have allergic reactions to ingredients in some drug products.

Regarding the practice of having pharmacy technicians call for verification/ clarification of prescriptions over illegible drug name, strength, quantity, refills, and directions, I live in Illinois and have worked for an organization that allows this. I am curious to know if the laws were being followed or violated.

There's help coming for those who have resolved to quit drinking in the new year. With the pending release of the second drug in the past half century to treat alcoholism, researchers say the whole treatment field may be at a tipping point.

Register with DEA before ordering narcotics in states

As patients in long-term care settings are huge consumers of pharmaceuticals, getting the right medications at the right time to these patients is a formidable challenge.

True to form, ASHP took the high road on several issues during a press conference at its midyear meeting in Orlando last month.

A customer engaged me in a lengthy conversation about his prescription. He had taken it for a few weeks and was concerned about the side effects. "Is IBS one of the side effects?" he asked.

Luteinizing hormone-releasing hormone (LHRH) agonists are a mainstay in treating locally advanced and metastatic prostate cancer, with the U.S. market for these therapies representing more than $1 billion in annual sales. The market is dominated by four-month and shorter depot injections and implants, such as leupro-lide acetate (Lupron, TAP Pharmaceuticals) for depot suspension and goserelin acetate (Zoladex, Astra Zeneca) implant.

Vesicare treats the symptoms of overactive bladder, such as urinary urgency and incontinence.

Overactive bladder (OAB) affects approximately 17 million to 20 million people in the United States, yet few realize that it is a treatable condition. Many people believe that it is a natural part of the aging process and are embarrassed to discuss it. It is estimated that costs related to OAB were nearly $14 billion in this country in 2000, similar to that of gynecological and breast cancers, osteoporosis, or arthritis.

According to the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, an estimated 10,000 new cases of multiple sclerosis are diagnosed every year. The most common form of MS at the time of diagnosis is the relapsing-remitting form, in which acute signs and symptoms occur intermittently and will go into intermission either spontaneously or with steroid therapy.

I remember being bawled out by a manager when he caught me telling a bawdy joke to a small group of male customers. I knew all of these men. They liked to tell me jokes. I shared jokes at the drugstore. It's what they expected of me.

The decision by a county comptroller on Long Island to sponsor a prescription drug discount card open to all citizens has New York pharmacists worried that the program might spread nationwide and send the last cash-paying customers into extinction.

The federal government is raising Medicare outpatient prospective payment system (OPPS) rates for 2005, but pharmacists are not cheering. Hospital pharmacy departments will see little, if any, of the increase.

There are increasing concerns about the frequency and duration of drug product shortages that have led to adverse patient outcomes. The current U.S. shortage of flu vaccine exemplifies the potential negative consequences of patient care either delayed or not provided. Healthcare professionals have devised methods of dealing with drugs in short supply, but some methods have led to product confusion and/or calculation errors resulting in the inadvertent administration of the wrong drug or wrong dose.

Two Philadelphia-area hospitals recently received patient safety awards for medication administration improvements that ranged from the very simple to the very technical. The Delaware Valley Medication Safety Award was shared in November by Northeastern Hospital of the Temple Health System and the Albert Einstein Medical Center of Jefferson Health System. The two hospitals split a $5,000 cash prize.

According to the 1999 Institute of Medicine report, To Err Is Human: Building a Safer Health System, medication errors are responsible for approximately 7,000 deaths annually. Said Raymond Muller, M.S., R.Ph., associate director of pharmacy services at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City, "More people in the United States die from medical errors per year than die from motor vehicle accidents, breast cancer, or AIDS." Muller addressed a session at The Chemotherapy Foundation symposium, Innovative Cancer Therapy for Tomorrow, held recently in New York City. The symposium was sponsored by the Mount Sinai School of Medicine.