ThePopTort

Speeding Through Life on Killer Drugs

We all know we shouldn’t drive drunk (or high.) But lately, the FDA has become worried that over-the-counter antihistamines, motion sickness and anti-diarrheal drugs are just as dangerous. Last week, the agency did a briefing (complete with a power point presentation) explaining how “motor vehicles and certain medications don't mix” – especially some that you find right in your file cabinet. 

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration estimates about 2.5 percent of fatal car accidents and 2 percent of injury crashes involved drowsy drivers. That's up to 6,000 fatal collisions each year.

And if you think that you can overcome fatigue with energy drinks, don’t.  As we’ve noted before, those can kill you without even stepping foot inside a car. For example, Heather Felts has just filed a lawsuit after her husband, Shane, died after drinking just one energy drink a day for two weeks.

The drink's manufacturer, she said, touts the energy drink as a dietary supplement when there are few to no documented health benefits.

Felts said her husband consumed Monster Energy Drinks for just two weeks.

He thought an energy drink was supposed to give him energy, but she said it instead left him dead.…

The FDA regulates caffeine content in soda but not in energy drinks because energy drinks are considered dietary supplements.

It's why manufacturers don't have to report the amount of supplements in the drinks - including caffeine content.

…

The Food and Drug Administration says since 2004 a total of 34 deaths have been linked to different energy drinks.

Remember when Monster decided to remarket itself as a beverage (rather than a dietary supplement) so it will “no longer be required to tell federal regulators about reports potentially linking its products to deaths and injuries.”  As we wrote last year, unfortunately, the law right now lets them do that! The New York Times notes, “the changes by [Monster] demonstrate the degree to which energy drink manufacturers can decide which rules to follow.” Not that there is much regulation of the dietary supplement industry anyway, but apparently even some of those rules were just too hard for Monster to follow.

I have to say, the FDA may not be able to regulate much but it sure has been doing a lot of “warning” lately.  Also this week, the agency is warning consumers about another kind of speedy drugs: weight loss supplements.  It says six of them “contain a dangerous drug that was pulled from the market in 2010 because of the risk of heart attack and stroke. The supplements contain sibutramine, marketed under the brand name Meridia as a weight loss drug before its withdrawal."

The tainted supplements are:

Mix Fruit Slimming, capsules sold on Amazon and other online retailers that are advertised as a "100% natural herbal new slimming pill without any side effects." The pills also contain phenolphthalein, a laxative ingredient the FDA banned in the 1990's because it is potentially carcinogenic.

Lingzhi Cleansed Slim Tea, also sold on Amazon and other online retailers, is advertised to "help to improve the function of intestines and stomach and speed up metabolism."

Trim Fast, available online and possibly in some retail stores, advertised to "suppress appetite, increase your metabolism by up to 18 times, and significantly increase energy."

24 ince, a slimming drink, is advertised online as "useful for health management such as weight control, reduces glucose level in our blood, reduce fat and cholesterol level."

Sliming (sic) Diet by Pretty White, sold on ebay and other online retailers in packages with ten capsules, is marketed as "harmless because it is natural."

Lipo 8 is also sold online and in some retail stores as a weight loss pill made from white kidney bean extract to "help eliminate fat before it gets absorbed into the body."

When it comes to the FDA, I guess we’ll take what we can get.

Teen Drinking, Distraught Parents and the Courts

There are a couple interesting cases in the Illinois court system – one just filed, one just finished –showing the frustration of parents of teens who die as a result of drinking. Whether the civil courts will be there for them is another story, however. 

Yesterday, the Illinois Supreme Court exonerated a couple - Sara and Jeffrey Hutsell - of any civil liability for death of 18-year-old Daniel Bell who died in a car crash after drinking at a party in their home. The court overturns an lower court decision that found them liable. The Chicago Tribune reports:

According to testimony in a six-day trial, about 30 teens showed up at the Hutsell home in the 700 block of Summit Drive that night at the invitation of their son. One teen said she recalled cans of beer in plain sight. Another testified he played a "beer pong" drinking game in the basement. More than one teen testified to seeing Jeffrey Hutsell in the basement when underage people were drinking.

In 2007, the Hutsells were convicted on misdemeanor criminal charges and Jeffrey even served some time in jail, but Illinois’ high court “ruled unanimously that Sara and Jeffrey Hutsell did not voluntarily undertake the duty to prohibit underage drinking and possession of alcohol. That meant their actions in 2006 could not be considered negligent."

But also this week, an entirely different kind of lawsuit was filed in Illinois by the distraught mother of a 15-year-old boy - "an honor roll student and lacrosse fanatic" - who died after he drank two cans of ‘Four Loko’ caffeinated malt liquor.  The manufacturer is Chicago-based.  The lawsuit alleges that “the controversial drink targets underage drinkers and should be banned.”

In this case, the teen was not driving, but rather “wandered blind drunk into a highway in suburban Washington D.C. and was hit by a car.” The Chicago Sun-Times reports,

Four Loko — nicknamed “blackout in a can” by young drinkers because of its high alcohol content — has been blamed for a spate of alcohol poisoning and binge drinking incidents on college campuses across the nation.

Phusion Projects did a voluntary recall of the product, before it was forced to decaffeinate the drink in November by the FDA, which warned that caffeine was an "unsafe food additive" in their products.

Phusion, which insists it does not market to underage drinkers, says it will fight the lawsuit in court. …

Rupp’s attorneys Jeffrey Simon and John Cooney said Four Loko’s sugary fruit flavors are designed to appeal to teens, to mask the smell and taste of alcohol and to encourage “chugging,” arguing the colorful design of the drinks cans is intended to blend in with non-alcoholic drinks in store coolers and confuse sales clerks and other adults.

The combination of stimulants including caffeine in the original Four Loko recipe gave drinkers an energy boost and masked the effects of the alcohol, Simon said, meaning they “keep drinking, instead of passing out.”

This is not the first lawsuit involving Four Loko: “[T]he parents of 20-year-old Florida State University student Jason Keiran — who shot himself after drinking Four Loko on Sept. 17 last year — previously filed a wrongful death suit.” Yet, “the deaths and other high-profile poisoning cases have only increased Four Loko’s popularity as a ‘taboo’ product, Simon claimed, pointing to websites where teens boast of “getting Loko’d.”