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Health Center
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Arthritis Health Center Arthritis or other chronic joint pain affects nearly 70 million people in the U.S. alone. Get in-depth information here about osteoarthritis, rheumatoid arthritis, and related conditions. You'll find articles about arthritis symptoms and prevention, arthritis drugs, and other promising treatments.
Depression Health Center An estimated 19 million American adults are living with major depression. Here you'll find in-depth information about depression symptoms, medications, and therapy. Plus, find daily help in our online support groups.
Diabetes Health Center Diabetes affects an estimated 17 million Americans, and the number rises each year. Find in-depth information here about diabetes prevention, diet, treatments, and research. Plus, find daily support and nutritional tips in our online message boards.
Pain Management Health Center Chronic pain affects an estimated 86 million American adults to some degree. Here you'll find the latest information on chronic pain treatments, as well as natural ways to manage your chronic pain. Plus, get help daily in our online support group.
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Medication Disposal Program
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Residents of the St. Louis bi-state region are in a unique position to “save the planet”…one pill at a time. They can now participate in the only medication disposal program of its kind currently funded by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Clean out your medicine cabinet and bringing your prescription or over-the-counter medications to RxMEDS -- “Regional eXcess Medication Disposal Service”.
Area Resources for Community and Human Services (ARCHS) received the EPA grant last year to implement RXMEDS in conjunction with Schnuck Markets, Inc., St. Louis College of Pharmacy, CINTAS Corporation, AARP Missouri, Mideast Area Agency on Aging, OASIS, and Senior Services Plus.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) states, “Safe methods of disposal are needed for expired or unwanted medicines. Products of concern include prescription and over-the-counter medications. Improper disposal of medicines presents both a public safety and environmental hazard and wastes millions of health care dollars annually.”
Here are the three simple steps residents can take to protect themselves, their families, pets, community, and the environment:
1. BRING MEDICINES TO ANY SCHNUCKS’ RxMEDS DISPOSAL SITE
Participate in the RxMEDS disposal program at selected Schnucks pharmacies on designated Thursdays, 10 a.m. - 1 p.m., January - December 2008. For the disposal schedule at a participating Schnucks near you, please contact 314-289-5629 or refer to stlarchs.org or schnucks.com.
- Bring unwanted medicines in original containers. Examples include expired or unwanted prescription or over-the-counter medicines.
- You may mark out your personal information located on prescription containers either at home or at the Schnucks program site.
- Please do not remove information, regarding the type of medicine, located on the container.
- The medicine will be NOT be resold or reused. All medicine will be hauled to a local, licensed incinerator and safely destroyed.
- By law, the program can not take “controlled substances.” When a medicine is identified as a “controlled substance” it will be recorded in the database and returned to the resident with instructions on how to safely dispose of the medicines.
2. DISPOSE OF MEDICINES AT HOME: Do not flush!
- Add water to the medicine container to dissolve the tablets or dilute the liquid
- Empty medicine and water from its container into a disposable and sealable bag.
- Mix in a handful of undesirable solid substance such as kitty litter or coffee grounds.
- Remove and destroy ALL identifying personal information from the prescription label of the original medicine container.
- Place bag in trash on trash pick-up day. Recycle the medicine container.
3. VOLUNTEER TO BE A RxMEDS GREETER AT SCHNUCKS
- At least two volunteer greeters are needed on Thursdays at each participating Schnucks pharmacy.
- Volunteer for as many or as few Thursdays as you would like.
- You’ll get easy-to-follow guidelines on how to greet participants. Only the pharmacists will accept medicines.
- For more information on volunteering, please contact the RxMEDS Information Line at 314-289-5629.
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SCHNUCKS PHARMACY RXMEDS COLLECTION SITES
JANUARY – DECEMBER 2008
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2nd Thursday of the Month
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4th Thursday of the Month
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10 a.m. till 1:00 p.m.
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10 a.m. till 1:00 p.m.
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Gravois Schnucks
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Florissant Schnucks
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7450 Hampton Ave.
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8200 N. Lindbergh Blvd.
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St. Louis, MO
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Florissant, MO
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City Plaza Schnucks
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Mid Rivers Schnucks
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3431 Union Blvd.
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577 Mid Rivers Mall Dr.
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St. Louis, MO
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St. Peters, MO
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Lake St. Louis Schnucks
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Telegraph Schnucks
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101 Civic Center Dr.
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5519 Oakville Shopping Ctr.
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Lake St. Louis, MO
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St. Louis, MO
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Harvester Schnucks
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Swansea Schnucks
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48 Plaza Ninety-four Dr.
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2665 N. Illinois St.
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St. Peters, MO
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Swansea, IL
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Kirkwood Schnucks
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Wildwood Schnucks
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10233 Manchester Rd.
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16580 Manchester Rd.
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Kirkwood, MO
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Wildwood, MO
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Arsenal Schnucks
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Cool Valley Schnucks
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5055 Arsenal St.
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1225 South Florissant Rd.
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St. Louis, Mo
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Cool Valley, MO
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New Twin Oaks Schnucks
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South Grand Schnucks
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1393 Big Bend Rd.
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3430 South Grand Blvd.
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Ballwin, MO
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St. Louis, MO
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Grandview Schnucks
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Godfrey Schnucks
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74 Grandview Plaza Ctr.
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2712 Godfrey Rd.
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Florissant, MO
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Godfrey, IL
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Bridgeton Schnucks
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Richmond Heights Schnucks
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11253 St. Charles Rock Rd.
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6600 Clayton Rd.
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St. Louis, MO
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St. Louis, MO
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Granite City Schnucks
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Wentzville Schnucks
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3100 Madison Ave.
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1960 Wentzville Pkwy.
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Granite City, IL
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Wentzville, MO
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Effective Treatment for West Nile Virus
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by David W. Moskowitz, MD
How effective could a treatment be if it's been around since 2003 but no one’s heard of it? This story says even more about the state of public health than about the West Nile virus.
GenoMed, a biotech company, has had encouraging results treating West Nile virus encephalitis since 2003: 82% treatment success rate in people (23 of 28), 75% in horses (6 of 8), and 50% in birds (6 of 12).
The approach works best when people first have symptoms of a fever and headache. But we’ve been able to help people even a few years after the initial episode of WNV encephalitis.
The first 8 WNV patients were published in a peer-reviewed medical journal in 2004 (1). We’re eager to see if our approach works again this year. A HIPAA-compliant spread-sheet of our clinical experience to date is available upon request.
Publication in a peer-reviewed medical journal is all it takes for a treatment to officially (i.e. medicolegally) exist.
The drugs we use are already approved by the FDA for blood pressure. Amazingly enough, they’re anti-inflammatory too. Contrary to popular belief, normal people who get sick from the West Nile virus have too strong an immune response to the virus, not a weak immune system. Our approach is meant to gently calm down their exaggerated immune response, the so-called “cytokine storm.” It can be used in the very old, the very young, and everybody in between.
Although the approach is highly controversial among human virologists (the CDC, for example, thinks all WNV patients have a weakened immune response), veterinarians have no problem with it. They were treating WNV in horses with non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs before we came along. We target a step further upstream in the inflammation pathway, and have saved horses that non-steroidal drugs were failing.
But because the CDC doesn't believe us, you've never heard of us. The CDC tells any reporter who asks that they've never heard of us, or that we're making up our data. I know this because I’ve checked back with reporters after they failed to print the story. State epidemiologists all take their cue from the CDC. Reporters for the past 5 summers have chosen to believe the prestigious CDC without looking at the data.
The irony gets even heavier, I’m afraid. I just read that Dr. Lyle Peterson, the CDC’s point man for WNV, actually got infected himself with the virus. I don’t know why, but he never tried our treatment. This illustrates perfectly the problem with the CDC’s current approach of just saying “No” to mosquitoes: it's useless advice once you've been bitten. Fortunately, Dr Peterson wasn’t paralyzed. I contacted him offering to try to treat any lingering symptoms. With WNV, there often are, such as fatigue, headache, weakness, etc.
The next day, Dr Petersen kindly emailed to thank me, but said he felt completely fine. He’s lucky; half of patients still have symptoms 18 months later.
In principle, our approach could be used for almost any virus except the herpes viruses, which seem to do the opposite of other viruses, inducing a state of immune suppression, not immune over-reaction. This is why our approach was included in the BioShield II Act of April 28, 2005, co-sponsored by Senators Lieberman, Hatch, and Brownback. The bill was never debated, but our approach was mentioned in Section 2151 (http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtext.xpd?bill=s109-975). In 2004, I briefed the White House and the Dept of Homeland Security about it. The UN is aware of our approach in the context of bird flu.
The drugs Genomed use cost about $1 a tablet and are carried in every drugstore on earth. Anybody who wants to download our WNV trial protocol can do so for free at any time by clicking on the "West Nile trial" link on our company’s homepage at www.genomed.com.
And the elderly, who die of infectious diseases at a higher rate than other age groups, may not have a weakened immune system. They may die precisely because they mount a more vigorous immune response to viruses and bacteria than younger patients.
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David W. Moskowitz, MD- Chairman, Chief Executive Officer, and Chief Medical Officer: GenoMed, Inc. Dr. Moskowitz majored in Chemistry at Harvard College, Biochemistry at Merton College, Oxford, and received an MD from the Harvard-MIT Division in Health Sciences and Technology (Harvard Medical School). He trained for 7 years in Internal Medicine, Biochemistry, and Nephrology at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis before spending 11 years on the faculty of St. Louis University School of Medicine. Since 1994, Dr. Moskowitz has experienced first hand the clinical effectiveness of knowing a disease-associated gene (the angiotensin converting enzyme, or ACE, gene). Dr. Moskowitz is a pioneer in the field of medical genomics, and has been recognized for his groundbreaking treatment of diseases.
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Don’t Let Mosquitoes Take a Bite Out of Your Summer Fun
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While the St. Louis region was spared the damaging floods that swept through several cities this spring, swollen rivers and soaking summer storms left pools of standing water behind – perfect breeding grounds for mosquitoes. Humid August weather provides the perfect temperatures.
“Local health officials have predicted that, in some areas, the mosquito population this summer could be five to 20 times the normal number of pests – that’s a lot of biting, itching and scratching,” said Melissa Murray, M.D., family medicine specialist on staff at St. Anthony’s Medical Center. “While most mosquito bites merely are annoying, they can transmit serious diseases. They also can trigger allergic reactions and can become infected.”
Health officials recommend eliminating standing water from your property and regularly cleaning gutters, wading pools, birdbaths and any containers that can collect and hold water.
“The best way to avoid bites is to stay indoors during the peak biting periods, from dusk to dawn, and apply insect repellent that contains diethyl-meta-toluamide (DEET) if you plan to be outdoors when mosquitoes are active,” Dr. Murray said. “Wear light-colored clothing, since mosquitoes are attracted to dark colors, and avoid using scented soaps, shampoos and lotions. Wear a long-sleeved shirt, long pants and socks that you have sprayed with repellent.”
If, despite your best efforts, you find yourself breaking out with little pink bumps that itch like crazy, there is some relief to be had, Dr. Murray said. “Apply a hydrocortisone cream, calamine lotion or baking soda paste to the bite several times a day until the itching subsides,” she said. “Scratching the bites can break the skin and might result in infection. For more severe reactions, an over-the-counter antihistamine might bring some relief.”
Rarely, mosquito bites can cause severe complications, including serious skin infections, severe allergic reaction and even diseases such as West Nile virus or encephalitis, Dr. Murray said. “If you experience fever, head and/or body aches, nausea/vomiting, rash, lethargy, confusion, jaundice or sensitivity to light, see your physician right away,” she said. “Additionally, you should seek medical attention for bites that have become infected or are not behaving like they usually do, since this may be a sign of a potentially serious infection.”
Swelling in your throat, hives and wheezing may be signs of anaphylactic shock, a life-threatening condition, and you must seek immediate medical attention – call 911, Dr. Murray said.
“Complications and severe reactions from a mosquito bite, thankfully, are rare,” Dr. Murray said. “Mosquitoes, unfortunately, are not. Protect yourself and your family this summer with a few common-sense precautions and keep the pesky little biters at bay.”
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