I take medicine regularly for epilepsy. I called in a prescription on Monday and went to get it on Wednesday (the pharmacy asks for a 24 advance notice ) It couldn't be filled because the pharmacy was out of stock - they were out of stock because of system crashes. I know they have installed new systems for Y2K - they have advertised that.

This is an HMO - you can only fill prescriptions every three weeks (the prescriptions are for a month supply) Suggestions on how to store up medication from an HMO?

-- (shalom100@aol.com), August 26, 1999

Answers

2 or 3 days after you get your script filled, call you Dr's office and tell them you seem to have lost your prescription and need a new one called in to the pharmacy. Happens all the time.

You could talk to your Dr too. Tell him you would like to get a 60 day but can't due to your HMO. Ask him instead of an Rx for 1 every 12 hours (or whatever it is) for 1 every 6 hrs or 2 every 12 hrs....You get the idea. Somtimes that works but the "gee, I must have lost them" will work every time.

-- DOC (Hoping_for@the.best), August 26, 1999.

Regarding losing prescription...With US Healthcare (Aetna) if you lose a prescription (or in our case, have your dogs eat it) you have to pay FULL PRICE to refill it. They don't cover lost meds. Of course, you'll still have your extra meds, but be ready to pay for it.

-- kritter (kritter@adelphia.net), August 26, 1999.

Get your doctor educated re Y2k real quick. Then he/she can figure out how best to stock up on meds. A GI doctor is a terrific asset, and next year they'll appreciate your advice, and be even more willing to take your payment in chickens.

Get your immunizations current, while you're at it - tetanus, hepatitis, whatever.

-- bw (home@puget.sound), August 26, 1999.

I have the same problem. Went to my DR the other day (not sure if GI or not) and told him I wanted to buy a full year supply. I told him I was concerned about Y2K supply-chain problems and that if there was not a Y2K problem I would still use the meds, but if there were a problem and I did not have it, there would be a problem.

He said that he had not had anybody ask him for that before, but went ahead and wrote the prescription. The incremental cost of the meds above the insurance deductibles is not that high, so the out-of- pocket expense for me is not too high (though that is not the case for MANY requiring on-going meds).

It is all about risk assessment -- what can I risk vs what is the cost. For me, the risk is too high and the cost minimal (in the scope of everything -- may have to give up pizza for a few months).

Dave

-- Dave (dave@nospam.pls), August 26, 1999.

Shots: Typhoid, Tetanus, Hep-A,B,C, PVV (new), Diptheria, Cholera, Rabies pre-need, Pneumonia, TB.

There are more, but I can't think of them right now. Think of going to a 3rd world country. Then get the shots.

-- Dennis (djoslon@pressenter.com), August 26, 1999.

Prescriptions are one thing, but please read the accompanying article before recommending vaccinations for everybody and everything.

Watchdog Groups Say Death Toll From Vaccines Amounts to "Genocide" Surgeon General's Letter in USA Today Assailed Contact: Jackie Lindenbach 208/265-2575 800/336-9266 8-25-99

Sandpoint, ID - Surgeon General David Satcher's letter in USA Today ("Immunization a must: Protects all," August 19. 1999), in which he complained that vaccine risks were overstated in an earlier cover story ("Now parents fear shots," Aug. 3, 1999), was harshly criticized as "genocidal propaganda" by a recognized expert in public health education, Dr. Leonard Horowitz. Dr. Horowitz, director of a health science publishing group (Tetrahedron Press, 208-265-2575) had received an invitation to meet with Dr. Satcher to "discuss issues of mutual interest" regarding vaccine risks when the surgeon general was still directing the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Dr. Satcher cancelled the meeting citing a "lack of credible scientific evidence." "Dr. Satcher's comment that 'serious [vaccine] side effects are extremely rare,' follows in the great tradition of Nazi spin doctor Josef Goebbles," Dr. Horowitz said. "In recent months, our vaccine research network, including many reputable scientists, has helped reform military and public vaccine policies concerning anthrax, hepatitis B, and polio due to risks far greater than the surgeon general admits." The oral polio and hepatitis B vaccines were particularly troubling to Dr. Horowitz and affiliated anti-vaccine activists due to government documents published in his bestselling book "Emerging Viruses: AIDS & Ebola-Nature, Accident or Intentional?" (Tetrahedron Press, $29.95; 1-888-508-4787). The text, recently credited during the CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices by Dr. Robert Chen as among the most persuasive risk awareness works supporting the anti-vaccination movement, was reviewed by Dr. Satcher. "I assume Dr. Satcher noted the contracts under which numerous immune system destroying viruses, similar to the AIDS virus (HIV), were secretly prepared during the late 1960s by biological weapons contractors and the military chimpanzee supplier Litton Bionetics. Dr. Satcher even received the contract under which Litton shipped contaminated primates to the Merck pharmaceutical company," Dr. Horowitz said. Merck's chief vaccine maker, Dr Maurice Hilleman, likewise testified that he "didn't know we were importing AIDS virus at the time" the contaminated monkeys entered his primate containment and vaccine production facilities. According to the evidence Dr. Horowitz provided Dr. Satcher, contaminated monkeys and chimpanzees were used by the CDC, FDA, and Merck vaccine makers to develop the hepatitis B vaccine injected into gay men in New York City and Blacks in Central Africa in 1974. "This was perfectly timed for the emergence of HIV, related to a chimpanzee virus, four years later, " Dr. Horowitz reported during a scientific session at the XI International Conference on AIDS. Following Dr. Satcher's implied denial of CDC wrongdoing, Dr. Horowitz issued a formal complaint to his network, carried by national newswires. Dr. Satcher's inability to see the incriminating evidence at the time he was being considered for the surgeon general post was reminiscent of the story told in "The Emperor's New Clothes." "Here was a Black man who could watch his own people in the U.S. and Africa, and millions of others around the world, die without seeing anything," Dr. Horowitz lamented. "The surgeon general's uniform suited him perfectly." According to Ingri Cassel, cofounder of the North Idaho chapter of Vaccination Liberation, partly responsible for her region's lowest vaccination rate in the nation, "Dr. Horowitz's inflammatory statements are appropriate under the circumstances." Ms. Cassel believes that sufficient scientific evidence exists linking vaccines to a plethora of autoimmune disease epidemics, cancers, and even female infertility. "The evidence warrants a more thorough investigation than recently done by Congress," she said. Genocide is defined as the mass murder of people for political and/or economic reasons. During the late 1980s, experimental tetanus vaccines containing the sterilizing hormone HCG were given to millions of unsuspecting women in the Americas and in several Third World nations. "Today, 25 percent of Black women in urban America, and 35 percent of native American women, are sterile," Dr. Horowitz said. "What a convenient 'act of nature' for those who fund population reduction programs including the world's largest vaccine maker-Merck. If that's not the grossest conflict of interest in Earth's history, I don't know what is." Records show the Merck pharmaceutical company received a major share of the Nazi "flight capital" at the close of World War II when its president, George W. Merck, was America's biological weapons industry director. These facts were revealed by Norman Covert, Army public relations director at Fort Detrick in Frederick, MD, and veteran news correspondent Paul Manning in his book "Martin Bormann: Nazi in Exile" (Lyle Stuart, Inc, 1981). "It's likely no 'accident' or 'act of nature' that today, after HIV has devastated populations in Central Africa and gay America, that 73 percent of AIDS cases in the United States are Black and Hispanic. Could today's public health units and physicians offices be like the concentration camps of yesteryear?" Dr. Horowitz, the son of a holocaust survivor, questioned. "Are modern vaccines being used in place of the gas? Given the evidence, we may want to change Dr. Satcher's title to 'surgeon genocide.'" People wishing to learn more about Dr. Horowitz's publications, including how to be exempt from vaccine "mandates," can visit his website at http://www.tetrahedron.org, call 1-888-508-4787. Send mail requests to Tetrahedron Press, 206 N. 4th Street, Suite 107, Sandpoint, Idaho 83864. End Note to Journalists: For review copies of Dr. Horowitz's works, or media interviews, please contact Jacqueline Lindenbach at 1-800-336- 9266.

-- Drew (Kolosky@Prodigy.Net), August 26, 1999.

Dennis,

There is no vaccine for Hep C and most adults have already developed immunity to Hep. A. Also this am was studying up on vaccines at teh CDC website nd the cholera vaccine is not recommended because it is not very effective and only lasts a couple months. It does give information on which antibiotics to use for treatment. Personally I am planning on Rabies, typhoid and influenza vaccines in addition to making sure all the "normal" ones are up to date. My hubby just had his "adult" Measles, Mumps, Rubella (MMR) booster and started his Hep. B series. I plan to tell the health dept. we are going to the Amazon region of Peru to go spelunking (caving - bats, rabies...) and need the other vaccinations. Anyhow...... good thoughts.

-- Kristi (securxsys@cs.com), August 26, 1999.

--(shalom), go to the prep forum at this site and you will find lots of good advice on how to get prescriptions cheap from Mexico by walking across the border, and if you cannot do that, ordering from other sources legally overseas. That way you will not pay the exorbitant US prices for a year's supply and will be sure to have them. I have a DGI or DWGI doctor who does not wish to receive any printouts from other GI doctors about Y2K, nor discuss it, and who discouraged me from getting a hepatitis series, but gave me tetanus booster. Even if he gave me prescriptions for a year's worth, it would be too costly for me to do here.

-- Elaine Seavey (Go;ds1sheep@aol.com), August 26, 1999.

My insurance allows me to get a 30 day supply at a time. I can get refills every 3 weeks. I have been getting these "3 week refills" since last Nov. In late Nov. of this year I will get my 2 DR.s to write new prescriptions for mail-order. In Dec, I will recieve 3-months supply from mail order pharmacy. Between the 12 extra weeks of meds saved up from 3 week refills and the 3 month supply from mail order, I will have 6 month's worth saved up. My only worry is that one of my Dr.s will decide to change my meds between now and end of the year or that something new comes up. I have been also refilling meds that I am no longer taking but Dr. had written a 1 year Rx for. Who knows when some of these extra meds will come in handy.

-- Homeschooling Grandma (mlaymon@glenn-co.k12.ca.us), August 27, 1999.