In keeping with the venue of the Beijing Olympics, I was going to share a bit about what healthcare there looks like (acupunture, herbal-based treatments, etc.). However, the Forbes article on the 10 Most Medicated States caught my attention.

No doubt everyone has heard of the death of actor Heath Ledger, who overdosed on a cocktail of medications.

He is not alone - not even close. In 1983, 92 people died in their homes from mixing prescription pills with alcohol or street drugs. That number spiked to 3,792 in 2004 - an increase of 3200 percent.

THURSDAY, July 10 (HealthDay News) -- In 2006, when he was 17, Harrison Neal of Tulsa, Okla., died in his sleep after knowingly ingesting prescription drugs meant for someone else.

"We're a very typical middle-class family from Tulsa," his father, Gary Neal, said. "And Harrison was a good kid. . . . He had a 3.5 grade average, a beautiful girlfriend, tons of very good friends, and he enjoyed all the normal kid stuff. "

But Harrison Neal was also addicted to prescription drugs, a fact that was well-known to his family, who supported him in his struggle to overcome that addiction.

By Steven Reinberg
EmpowHer's HealthDay Reporter

WEDNESDAY, May 28 (HealthDay News) -- U.S. health officials proposed Wednesday changes to the labels on prescription drugs that would detail potential health effects for pregnant and breast-feeding women, their fetuses or their newborns.

If enacted, the new system, proposed by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, would provide doctors and pharmacists with more comprehensive information to guide them in their prescribing practices.

This article got me wondering:

EmpowHer's Health Tip: More Americans Taking Drugs for Chronic Health Problems
http://empowher.com/content/empowhers-he...

Are we a society of hypochondriacs, or are there environmental issues we're not dealing with well enough to be as healthy as we should be with all our state-of-the-art medical care?

What's your take?

The Washington State Patrol has arrested an Everett woman suspected of using another woman's identity to get medical care and prescription drugs.

The 48-year-old woman was booked into the Snohomish County Jail just before 12:30 p.m. Tuesday for investigation of seven counts of first-degree theft, two counts of second-degree theft, six counts of forgery, first-degree identity theft and drug violations.

By Steven Reinberg
EmpowHer's HealthDay Reporter

MONDAY, March 24 (HealthDay News) -- Patients who receive free drug samples from their doctors end up having significantly higher out-of-pocket costs for their prescription drugs than people who don't receive free samples, a new study finds.

In fact, patients who received free samples spent about $166 in out-of-pocket costs on prescription drugs in the six months before receiving the samples, $244 for the six months in which they received samples, and $212 for the six months following receipt of the free drugs, the study found.

Retuers

WASHINGTON - About a fifth of U.S. college students are taking painkilling pills and other prescription drugs to get high, a study published on Monday showed.

And students who take prescription drugs for non-medical reasons are at least five times more likely to meet the definition of having a drug abuse problem than students not misusing them, the researchers reported in the journal Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine.

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Federal investigators have cleared two doctors in California and Texas of any wrongdoing in the death of actor Heath Ledger.

The Drug Enforcement Agency interviewed the doctors earlier this week about prescriptions found in Ledger’s apartment and determined they did not prescribe him the two most powerful drugs – Oxycontin and Vicodin, the New York Post reports. The doctors did meet with Ledger but prescribed him other medications, according to investigators.

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