"looks inside, individually packaged"

Jeom@lemmy.world to Lemmy Shitpost@lemmy.world – 354 points –

it does say that theres only 20 in the label, but im more pissed about the waste. everything couldve been put on 3 trays

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i think that might be a suicide prevention measure, i remember something about blister packaging helping reduce suicide rates.

You will also often see such packaging used with in hospitals, group homes, and nursing homes. It helps to limit med errors for nurses and cnas and can allow some mentally handicapped people or elderly to have some control over their lives.

It's not a common packaging you are going to get from a pharmacy unless specified for you by a doctor.

Just looked this up, had no idea but it makes sense

😂 Bro its sad how so many doctors dont really consider most humans adults lol

Adults are the ones usually killing themselves by overdosing. Suicide is final, and survivors of botched attempts praise that they failed to kill themselves. It's why men have a higher suicide rate, because their method is usually final. Having a packaging that hinders the process of suicide via overdosing is helpful to all involved.

I got a big pack of milka cookies, it was huge...triple the size of their regular...turns out it only came with 2 extra cookies.

It had a huge plastic tray, remind me again why i'm being told to use a paper straw once every 2 years i actually get a straw when manufacturers keep pulling shit like that.

Have you made any effort to change the laws about straws beyond complaining about it on social media?

Ah, right. How could I forget. Systemic issues are solely the fault of us as individuals for not singlehandedly solving them ourselves

Why would i change laws for the straws when they are replaced for a good cause.

The point i attempted to make is that that single straw is like half a gram of plastic saved when the manufacturer makes possibly millions of these packages that waste 30x the plastic that is saved on my straw.

We just need a good and effective way to make the manufacturer of these products change their ways. Adding costs/fines/taxes for plastic usage isn't helping because they just pass those on to us and sneak in a little extra profit.

There are many reasons these may be pacakaged this way: from lowering the possibility of accidentally taking the wrong pill to anti-theft.

It would be cheaper for the manufacturer to just put them all in a bottle, so rest assured they wouldn't do this if the benefits didn't outweigh the costs.

There's been a shift away from putting pills in bottles.

IIRC it was pioneered by the NHS (UK), because they found that the mild inconvenience and time of popping out the pills one by one, in comparison to the ease and speed of downing a whole bottle of them, cut down on people attempting suicide by overdose by a surprising amount.

That's... Actually pretty genius. When I'm depressed I don't have the mental energy to do that.

That's how governments work. Not a single penny spent on making life more worth living, but methods of making suicide somewhat less convenient hits industrial scale production.

This is such a cynical take. NHS finds a simple change to save lives and you spun it bash on the idea of government.

Adding that certain markets won't accept bottles, you must use a blister.

Why is it one per card, bit of a head scratcher, but given the logistics and distribution costs of shipping this format, agree they wouldn't do this for fun.

Because one pill is probably the recommended dosage for that medication.

I'm willing to believe there's a reason to have them separated but why would they use such a large packaging for it?

blistering machines used in the pharmaceutical industry usually work with some standard sizes, hence the size of the blister. change parts also cost a small fortune, so it makes no sense to have them tailored for just one product if it works well enough with existing equipment. thay being said, a couple of things below in reply to the whole thread, not just yourself.

to add to the list of reasons one would want them individually packaged, it's easier to dispense a set amount of pills in this manner, for medicine that needs to be tailored for each user more often (think if you need 5 capsules, you'd get a blister that is weirdly cut by the pharmacist with a pair of scissors - cutting the blister also removes important information like lot number and expiry date). also, it could have some stability issues outside of the blister, so dispensing them naked in bottles might not be the best thing.

for antibiotics and such, it's also crucial to take each and every dose prescribed so dropping one in the sink accidentally when you're shaking a bottle is something you're trying to prevent. the size of the blister would also make it harder to lose around the house or one's backpack/bag/purse/saddlebags/bag of holding and then not taking your last dose (in addition to the change parts thing mentioned at the start).

individually wrapped bananas are a waste. for critical things like pharmaceuticals, there is more likely than not a good reason for this. look up pharmacovigilance if curious to know more.

Here's the comment I was looking for! I was going to suggest this might be the issue. (total guess), but it made sense when I saw its the standard size of other blister packs you get.

I also heard that the reason heinz tins dont stack well whilst other brands do is because of how expensive it would be to replace the machines (or parts of the machines) that make the can lids and bases.

So it was a fair assumption that it's basically the same problem here.

Especially when you consider that it's probably very few people that need just 1 of a certain pill. Thisnis likely a supply issue with this medication in the multi blister packs, so they gave 20 singles.

Make it harder to steal is the most common reason.

first of all why would anyone steal pills? secondly, how is this making it harder?

first of all why would anyone steal pills?

Remember, people in the US often have to pay a shitload for medication.

But even outside of the US, there's still the issue of people wanting to steal prescription medicine if you can get high on it/sell it to people who want to get high from it.

The only time I've seen something like this is when my doctor really wanted me to try an anti-depressant, so he gave me a perpetual supply of free samples.

Why not put them all in one little baggy? That's how I buy my pills from Rick.

JUST PUT IT IN A PILL BOTTLE.

Bottles are bad. There's a reason that the industry is, often due to public welfare regulations, moving away from them.

Could you explain why?

because people really do end up chugging the pills, among other reasons.

i am totally for reducing waste, but we have bigger fish to fry first

you can still chug the pills it just takes a few more minutes

Blister packs are purposely annoying to open to prevent abuse

i don't know any addict that would be deterred for even a minute by that

And yet suicides measurably decreased when the switch to blister packs was made.

And yet when I put an entire box of blister pack antihistamines in my bag, I pull it out later on to find 75% of blisters broken.

This reminds me of when I got an RX for Quvivq. It came in a box... Which had three boxes inside of that... Each inner box had a slide-out blister pack with 10 pills in it 🤦‍♂️