A medical expert says an antibiotic used to battle anthrax infection is not something Iowans need to start buying up.
A spam e-mail received at Radio Iowa this week advertises the drug “Cipro” for sale at 65-dollars for ten tablets. Nancy Bowersox is vice president for clinical pharmacy services at the Iowa Pharmacy Association. She says the website may be illegal as a prescription is needed for Cipro. She says it’s probably a site that needs to be looked into.
Bowersox just attended a state briefing on bioterrorism and has been assured, the drug is in plentiful supply. She wants to assure Iowans they do -not- need to panic and start stockpiling this, or any other, anti-anthrax drug. Bowersox says Iowa drug stores -do- have Cipro on their shelves.
There are also federal stockpiles of Cipro in case of emergency. She says the medication from those stockpiles can be in Iowa within six hours. Bowersox says there’s no need to buy or take any drugs in hopes of warding off the extremely rare malady. Three anthrax cases are confirmed in Florida. One man died from it last week.