Job Security

Looks like the need for pharmacists isn't going anywhere but up! Good news for me.

The annual report on Americans' health found that just over 44 percent of all Americans take at least one prescription drug, and 16.5 percent take at least three.

Here's the more surprising stat:

Even for people under age 18, however, nearly one-fourth - 24.1 percent - were taking at least one prescription medication. The rate rose to 34.7 percent between age 18 and 44; for those ages 45 to 64, it was 62.1 percent.

The under 18 numbers, 1 in 4 young people on a prescription drug, is puzzling. I would like to see their methodology. If they were looking strictly at chronic or long-term medication use it would be interesting to see what drugs specifically are driving these numbers. However, if they looked at any drug use, short-term antibiotic use could easily drive these numbers up to high levels. For chronic drug use in this age group my guess would be the majority of drug use is coming from birth control pills and then for ADD/ADHD.

And yes, this post is being published under the influence myself...