As you can imagine, after the whole IUD scandal broke, I had to get me some answers as to why the heck all this FDA stuff was such a big deal in the first place.
(OK, so it was technically AFTER I went through my denial phase..... and my angry phase..... and then my curled-up-in-a-ball-thumb-sucking phase..... but we're all good now!)
And where else can a girl go for answers, but to The Wonderful Wizard of Google.
Google, after all, is a great place to find out a lot of stuff about a lot of things you never thought you'd have to know - most of them having nothing to do with the question at hand.
My fingers flew across the keyboard and, after days of very-interrupted research, I now have a couple of answers (and from half-way legitimate sources, too!).
Drugs (or in this case "medical devices") from Canada are not NECESSARILY a bad deal. Many of the drugs over there are actually manufactured in the good ol' U S of A.
They are cheaper because the Canadian government puts a cap on how much companies can charge for their drugs.
But what a lot of folks don't realize is that the FDA's job is not just drug approval. And it's not just overseeing the manufacture of drugs. The FDA also sets standards for how drugs have to be shipped.
And shipping can be a very dangerous thing.
I'm sure you've all heard stories of Fido the Family Pet freezing in the underbelly of a plane on a Christmas flight home.
Or Sparky the Wonder Dog suffering heat stroke while perched on a luggage cart in the sweltering heat of a tarmac.
Well, drugs are equally sensitive to these kinds of extreme temperatures. Which, of course, can alter the effectiveness.
Now, this may be a problem for Mirena users (the IUDs containing a hormone that you see all those goofy commercials about). However, I have a Paragard IUD - no hormone here! Copper is the magical ingredient. And I'm pretty sure copper stays just as coppery regardless of the hot or cold. I mean, I think so. I tried to Google it, but all the sites were WAY scientificky, so I gave up.
But I threw a penny in the freezer and one in the broiler, and they looked alright to me!
Then there's the question of packaging.
In the case of a "medical device" coming from unknown sources, there are no assurances that the product was not tampered with or damaged.
We once attempted to check a box of Italian dishes from Italy back to the United States. Three planes later, our carefully packaged box was no longer in a cube shape, and now had an enchanting rattle as it was carried.
It was a sad, sad day when I opened up that box.
But, in the case of our illegal IUDs, torn or damaged packaging would have more to do with infection, which the Health Department does not believe to be an issue.
So what's left? Well, let me check back to The Providence Journal... oh, here it is...
"OB-GYN Associates, which has five offices in Rhode Island and two in Massachusetts, purchased versions of the birth-control device from a toll-free number that claimed to be in Canada...."
and
"Drugs and devices purchased through Canadian sources are not necessarily approved for the Canadian market and sometimes are counterfeit..."
COUNTERFEIT!!??!!
I read in another article that, when doctors use IUDs, they should be wary if they see foreign writing on the packaging, because that's a sign you're using illegal IUDs.
(Really?!?? The State of California had to clue these geniuses in on that?? Ugh.)
I have tried and tried to make my brain remember if I saw any foreign writing on the packing that the doctor opened.
I attempted to get Hubster to use a "hypnotizing" iPhone app to try and put me under so I could recollect these sorts of details, but he wouldn't stop playing "Words With Friends" long enough to help me.
(For all you non-cool, non-iPhone peeps, it's Scrabble, but you play it on your phone. With people really far away. Some of whom you've never met. I swear, it's fun!)
It would probably help if I knew what "Canadian" is supposed to look like, but I'm not familiar with the language.
And Hubster won't let me shell out the dough for Rosetta Stone.
So I have NO WAY of knowing where this thing originated from.
But...guess WHAT!!!
I've started the ball rolling on my referral to a brand-new non-criminal-acts-engaging provider to get my foreign foreign object out, and I found out something absolutely charming!
The Health Department has requested that all of our "allegedly" illegal devices be put in a bio-hazard bag, affixed with an enormous label-ful of information, kept at a balmy 25-40 degrees Celsius while it waits for a HEALTH representative to arrive and provide a chain of custody protocol.
Dude. I am sooo CSI.
