
Sirum (YC W15) Recycles Unused Medicines to Save Money and Lives - akircher
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/03/20/recycling-unused-medicines-to-save-money-and-lives/
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ajiang
An incredible idea. Very proud to see new sustainable models for nonprofits
going through YC, especially ones that actually save lives.

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akircher
Thanks. We do think financial sustainability is one of the most important ways
for nonprofits to keep focused on their mission and scale their impact.

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toomuchtodo
What do you think about the idea of a non-profit generic drug manufacturer?

I've always thought Medicare would jump at the idea of slashing its drug
costs, but undertaking something like this is a crazy huge project.

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akircher
If you can overcome the high capital costs, I think it could be very
successful. You may want to check out One World Health which is a nonprofit
drug development organization that does incredible work as well.

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ngoel36
Incredible idea! I wish we could do this for food, as well.

And I don't mean food banks or soup kitchens. I mean the second McDonald's
burger I was too stuffed to eat, or even the 8th leftover slice of pizza (as
good as it is cold, somebody else could probably benefit from it more).

The logistics and legal challenges are mind-boggling, but there has to be a
way.

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cauterized
There's an organization in NYC called City Harvest that "rescues" food every
night that restaurants, supermarkets, farmers markets, bakeries, and the like
are unable to sell, and distributes it by the truckload to soup kitchens and
food pantries. Hundreds of tons every week.

They are very strict about what donations they'll accept. Even what's left in
a buffet at the end of the night can't be donated. There's too much risk of
contamination and spoilage. With your leftover burger there's no way to be
confident you've practiced appropriate food care (refrigeration; how long
you've kept it) even if you never unwrapped the thing -- let alone the slice
of pizza that you probably touched with your bare hands and for all anyone
knows is harboring flu virus or strep.

You're right, the liabilities make it unrealistic. How about buying a little
bit less food and either donating the money you'd save to an org like City
Harvest or buying a sandwich for the next homeless guy you pass on the street?

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Houshalter
If only food irradiation was less restricted, perhaps they could irradiate
everything and at least be assured its safe even if it was spoiled.

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cauterized
IIRC, radiation doesn't help with botulism, which is a chemical rather than a
virus or bacterium, and which is incredibly toxic.

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Houshalter
It kills the bacteria that produces it, but that is a good point. Still, it
might be possible to test for it, and its unlikely that restraunt food
contains it just from getting spoiled.

As I understand it botulism is mostly a concern in canning. If you kill most
of the bacteria but the botulism bacteria is hardy and survives and produces
it for months in the can.

You won't get that from eating spoiled buffet or even garbage.

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aareet
Very cool, I love this new stream of nonprofits from YC.

I'm curious about a couple of things: Do you repackage the medicines before
shipping them? Do you currently just handle tablets or also other forms
(insulin for example, that may have to be refrigerated)?

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akircher
Most of the medication is donated in its original packaging. In most states
the recipient can then repackage so the patient gets a normal amber vial just
like any other source.

We do donate a lot of injections, patches, and inhalations. Currently we are
not able to do refrigerated medicine like insulin, but are working on cold-
chain shipping so hope to offer that soon.

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j_lev
I didn't realise the situation with throwing out medicines was so bad in the
US. For comparison, pharmacies in Australia have always been a place where you
would return unused medicine, where it is destroyed (some medicine just cannot
be reused), reused or shipped to developing countries (used to be able to send
recently-expired medicine that was still effective but I think I read this was
no longer the case)

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akircher
It's refreshing to hear that at least one country seems to have solved this
problem. Here in the US we have a whole industry of Reverse Distributors
(Stericycle, Genco, INMAR) whose job is to sort and then incinerate unused
medicine.

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imaginenore
How does one verify that the returned/donated drug is actually that drug?

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akircher
State laws have a lot of safeguards built-in to ensure all the medicine is
safe. For example, all the medicine donated must be checked by a pharmacist to
ensure that it is unopened, unexpired, from an eligible licensed facility. We
also use a bar code scanner to enter and identify the medicine before it is
sent.

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elenawalom
What an awesome initiative!

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akircher
Thanks! We are honored to be one of the non-profits in YC

