Many U.S. teens share medications

From CBC News:
Many U.S. teens have lent or borrowed prescription medications such as antibiotics and acne medication, a survey suggests.

When researchers interviewed 529 people aged 12 to 17 in 11 U.S cities or suburbs, they found one in five reported they had borrowed or lent a prescription.

A third of the teens who took a borrowed prescription did not tell their doctor, the team said in this week's online issue of the Journal of Adolescent Health.

"Other researchers have studied people selling prescription drugs, but we looked at people with good intentions, trying, for instance, to help a friend who lacked money or transportation for a doctor's visit," co-author Chris Mayhorn, a professor of psychology at North Carolina State University, said in a release from the Center for the Advancement of Health.

Increased antibiotic resistance is also possible, since neither the lender nor the borrower was likely to take the full course of the drugs, the researchers noted. ...more