I’m complementing today’s post with a picture of the contents of one of my kitchen cabinets. It is filled with the bottles of medicine prescribed to my boyfriend by his countless doctors, some of whom are in Virginia, and some of whom are in Chicago. Most of the containers are still filled with pills because he didn’t take all of them (thank God), but still… it seems excessive, doesn’t it?

I was at a bridal shower this past weekend, and as I navigated the room, I overheard a bevy of conversation on various prescription meds.

“Oh, just take half a Lexapro, and you’ll be fine,” was one tidbit.

“I take half a Xanax to fall asleep at night,” was another.

“She’s been acting out of it and lethargic? Oh that’s definitely the anti-depressants - trust me, I know,” was another.

Prescription drugs are pervasive in today’s society, and it shows.

In today’s Wall Street Journal, there are numerous articles on prescription drugs gone bad. The concept of inhaled insulin was stopped in its tracks by an announcement from Pfizer that six diabetics taking its inhaled insulin, Exubera, during clinical trials developed lung cancer, compared with one case of the malignancy among patients not using Exubera.

In another WSJ Article, the FDA has tripled the number of deaths it attributes to allergic reactions to the blood thinner heparin since January 2007 to 62 from 19.

In keeping with the theme of tainted drugs, Cubist Pharmaceuticals Inc. said it has warned the Food and Drug Administration that one of its antibiotic drugs, Cubicin, has been tainted with a potentially harmful industrial chemical, according to another article in today’s edition of the Wall Street Journal.

And you thought that WSJ only had dreary financial news these days.