Franklin County, Tenn., is just a few readings away from rules making pseudoephedrine-based cold medicines available only by prescription. Cowan, Decherd and Estill Springs are the remaining municipalities in the county set to pass new rules on pseudoephedrine-based cold medicines as law enforcement takes a new step in the battle against methamphetamine. Pseudoephedrine is the primary ingredient in meth production. "The only way it's going to be successful is if the entire region does this," Winchester police Chief Dennis Young said. The new, countywide rules will be a first among Tennessee counties. Young said officials from Franklin County are meeting with neighboring counties, Grundy County being the next stop over the next few days. Young said pharmacy statistics show meth makers have been heading for Tennessee in droves to get their ingredients. In the past year, about 780,000 people bought pseudoephedrine in Tennessee. Pharmacy sales records show tens of thousands of people come from Alabama, Georgia and Mississippi to get the precursor chemical in Tennessee. "Tennessee this year is reclaiming No. 1 in the nation in the production of meth," Young said. Missouri was the top-ranking state, but more than 70 cities in Southern Missouri implemented regulations similar to those … Continue reading →

Finally, and contrary to common perceptions, antidepressants probably work better than psychological therapies. The situation, in short, is not as alarming as it might appear which is reassuring for all concerned. ................. There is yet more to the phenomenon of the apparently fit and healthy being diagnosed with diabetes than as mentioned in this column last week the recent switch from the commonsensical criterion of a raised blood-sugar level to the obscure (if supposedly more sensitive) measurement of glycated haemoglobin. This week, Dr Aleesa Carter and colleagues at Toronto General Hospital, in a major study of almost half a million patients, confirm that the current epidemic of diabetes is also, at least in part, medically induced (or iatrogenic), caused by the mass prescription of cholesterol-lowering statins. This is almost certainly a biological problem attributed to their adverse effects on the insulin-secreting cells of the pancreas with the risk of diabetes rising with the dose and potency of the type of statin prescribed. The absolute risk remains small, but, with seven million people currently taking statins in Britain, adds up to a staggering 27,450 additional cases of diabetes over a four-year period. The phenomenal scale of this unintended adverse effect (predictably, … Continue reading →