Letter Re: Securing Needed Prescriptions for Family Preparedness

Dear Mr. Rawles,
First, I must thank you for the great service that you provide to society. I simply can’t tell you how much I have learned since beginning to read SurvivalBlog daily. I’ve decided that 10 cents per day is not enough, and plan to double it soon. Though I pray that I will die peacefully at the age of 98 without ever having to activate my prep plans, the feeling of security that comes from preparation will make my remaining years much more pleasant!

As a pharmacist, I wanted to make a few additional comments regarding Matt R.’s important suggestions regarding medication procurement. First, he is correct to assume that most manufacturer’s expiration dating is very conservative, and is often predicated on the worst possible storage conditions. Like for most other storage items, cool and dry are the most important considerations in extending the shelf life of drugs. As you so correctly point out in my new favorite book, Patriots, very few drugs degrade to toxic compounds; it is usually a matter of loss of potency over time. Since many drugs needed in a post-SHTF world, like antibiotics and vitamins, have high therapeutic indices (the effective dose is far smaller than the toxic dose, leaving you some “wiggle room” in dosing), one could titrate the dose up in an emergency situation if the expiration date has been exceeded by several years. Obviously, this is a “better than nothing” approach, and is not to be advocated while the world is still “normal”!

Interestingly, the U.S. Dept. of Defense has initiated a program throughout the active duty medical services called “SLES” or “Shelf Life Extension System”. As I understand it, the DOD, in cooperation with the FDA, conducted their own stability studies for many high volume drugs on their formulary. In order to save money (always a good thing when it’s taxpayer dollars that are being saved!) by using their own expiration date rather than the manufacturer’s, their “extended” shelf life is being employed. Of course, their findings are closely guarded, and is is prohibited to leak any information to the general public, as it would counter the very conservative expiration dates that cause millions of dollars of waste annually in the private sector. To be fair, the storage conditions can be more carefully controlled in the Defense system that throughout society. Though the true numbers are almost mythical, I did find a transcript of a speech given by a medical officer to a civilian audience. In trying to illustrate how much money the DOD is saving the public through this program, he cited one example: At controlled room temperature, ciprofloxacin (generic) tablets had been found to retain potency for 10 years past printed expiration date – he then said that further testing would probably extend the shelf life even further! Now before we all get excited, please remember that this is a highly anecdotal example, and is meant only to underscore the point that with proper storage, most published expiration dates are loose guidelines. Of course, biological drugs, such as insulin and cell growth factors are inherently less stable, and will present a real problem for those dependent on them during an extended SHTF or TEOTWAWKI occurrence.

With regard to Matt’s reference to his dentist writing prescriptions for Tamiflu, don’t be surprised if some pharmacists refuse to fill such prescriptions. In all states with which I have any familiarity, it is illegal for a doctor, or dentist to write prescriptions for drugs outside the scope of their practice. Pharmacists are usually held legally responsible for saying “no” in such cases by their State pharmacy practice act, though it usually takes something pretty obvious to trigger a rejection. Matt’s dentist may be prepared to argue that it’s hard to work on teeth when his patient’s nose is running like Niagara Falls, so it is within his scope of practice to treat influenza! Also, if you’re using insurance to pay for “stockpile meds”, just be aware that the practice may be misinterpreted as fraud by some insurance companies. I’m sure a sudden high volume of claims for unrelated medications would probably prompt an investigation or claim rejection.

Just my two cents worth – I will put more thought and research into specifics, and try to help out more in the future. Best Wishes, and thanks to all who share their knowledge and insight on your terrific blog! – S.H. in Georgia

Letter Re: California’s House Prices Plummet to Surprising Depths

Hi Jim,
We’ve been good about our refinancing. As the house appreciated, we took a little here and there on two re-fi[nancing]s, to pay off most of our credit debt, and to start a business. At this time a couple of years ago, the house was worth $440,000, conservatively. In January, $351,000. Just last night, using a very good evaluation tool called Zillow.com, we were surprised to find that in the last six months, the house’s value dropped [still further,] to just over $250,000. That was a shock. Almost [a] $190,000 [on-paper loss] in less than two years, in an area where we didn’t think that it would go this low. We’ll be fine, due to the sale of another house soon, but the feeling is one of being robbed. Eh, what the heck, we were part of the problem with the re-fi, but those were modest compared to the majority of them out there, and we did do well with what we pulled. We trust God to keep telling us what to do. If we’d listened to your advice, we would have sold the house two years ago [at the top of the market] and rented it back. That $190,000 in the bank would have been great. (Sigh.)

We’ll get by okay. I hope others are able to find their way out via some means that doesn’t include walking away from their homes and their responsibilities. – Randy in the People’s Republic of Kalifornia.

Odds ‘n Sods:

Reader KMA found a web site with photos of Antique Farm Tools dating from about 1600 to 1940 (chaff cutters, dibblers, flails, etc.). Though most are from England, Wales and Scotland, others from the USA are also included. Remember: Part of of our future lies in the past. Nineteenth Century technology is appropriate technology.

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Jack B. sent us this commentary link from The Economist: Bearish battalions. Continue to stay away from equities for the next few years, folks. They are a losing proposition in a credit-starved and slowing economy. As I’ve often said, if you want safety, then buy tangibles.

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Here is a “must read” piece in Barron’s by Alan Abelson: No Place to Hide. Here is key quote: “Credit for at least two decades has been what made our world go ’round, and suddenly somebody pulled the plug and it was gone. And gone, too, are the fabulous bubbles and booms that it so generously fed, leaving a horrible mess that we’re nowhere near mopping up.”

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Chris S. flagged this alarming news article: New West Nile virus strain may worsen epidemic

Jim’s Quote of the Day:

“From housing to the dollar, banking to commodities, national debt to soaring Medicare and Social Security obligations: it’s difficult to see the period since 2002 as anything other than one of profligacy and utter fiscal mismanagement. I am not a bear by nature, but when you consider the average debt of the average household and the concentration of household assets in housing, it’s difficult to see happy retirements for many baby boomers.” – Brett Steenbarger

Note from JWR:

The following is another article for Round 17 of the SurvivalBlog non-fiction writing contest. The writer of the best non-fiction article will win two valuable four day “gray” transferable Front Sight course certificates. (Worth up to $4,000!) Second prize is a copy of my “Rawles Gets You Ready” preparedness course, generously donated by Jake Stafford of Arbogast Publishing. Round 17 ends on July 31st, so get busy writing and e-mail us your entries. Remember that articles that relate practical “how to” skills for survival will have an advantage in the judging.

Checking Your Preparedness with the PACE System, by Wolverine

I had been using the PACE system for years, I just didn’t know that is what it was called, or that it even had a formal name. I first read about the PACE acronym over on the Viking Preparedness site, in a post by Joe. Growing up we joked that the system was called one’s good, two’s better, and three is about right. It is the same spirit of “two is one and one is none” that the PACE system stresses.

PACE stands for Primary, Alternate, Contingency, and Emergency. It is a good solid way to break down your preps to make sure that your survivability is high. It doesn’t have to be a long hard plan, it can be very simple. Ask yourself the question for each major category of survival.

Water
What is your primary source of drinking water? If you are like most of us you turn on the faucet. Okay, your primary source is covered. Most likely all of us have the primary items covered by our “normal” living. You throw a light switch for lights, turn up the furnace for heat, and open the fridge for food. We live with our primary supply system.
The first level of survivability is at the Alternate level. When the power goes out-what next? For some it is 12 volt back up, others light candles, and still others fire up the Coleman lanterns. The totally unprepared sit in the dark and grumble. So what do you do when the power goes out and you can’t draw water from the system?
I can tell you my plan. I had to use it about a year ago when I still lived in town and the city put a No Drinking of Water notice on our block. I got the sealed water cooler bottles I had stored and opened one of them for drinking and cooking. The bottles cost under $4 each and hold 5 gallons of pure drinking water. There is no chemicals added and they store well. I checked with the dealer and found out that if I buy the natural water, same price, it will store well over five years as long as it is kept in a cool and dark place. They said it might store forever but they couldn’t tell me that. I keep four of them stored as my Alternate plan for water as well as several camping jugs, one gallon jugs and a couple cases of bottled water.

If we go into a long term situation and I run out of my stored water I have to fall back to my Contingency plan. I have a filter system that will allow me to make lots of drinking water before I have to change the filter. Either rain water or water from a point well can be cleaned and ready as needed. Another layer of my contingency plan is water tabs to us as well.

My emergency water will come from the stream a quarter mile to the west of my farm. I have a Katadyn filter to use to clear it and make it drinkable. We can also boil water to clean it. I can draw the water from my hot water tank if needed. We also have bleach. Our water back ups are more than just [three] PACE levels because water is so important. Besides, it is not that hard to develop a few good purification methods for water.

Heat
Without power we lose the furnace and our heat. We heat with propane so I can drop into the Alternate plan easily and turn on the fire place and the stove to heat our “cocoon” room. If needed, we can live in our kitchen/living room for days on end. While not really part of our PACE plan, it is good to know that we can heat a smaller area and stay comfortable during cold weather. Our contingency plan is to bring in the kerosene heater out of the barn and use it to heat the cocoon room. If we are in a long term grid down situation I can pull the fireplace insert and convert it to a wood burning fireplace in a matter of minutes. We consider that our emergency plan.

Food
I will not speak much about food because if you have read any of the survival blogs you know that you need to store food, canned and packaged, grow a garden, store grains, harvest wild edibles, and plan on hunting and trapping.

Shelter
I am very fortunate to live at my retreat. I moved back to the family farm less than a year ago. My wife and I had already stored a large amount of our preps in the barn and had planned to bug out to here even if the house was not completed. Our plan was to make as much of the house livable as possible if TSHTF. If that was not possible for us than we would build living quarters in the barn. Unable to do that we would put up a tent and camp out. Now that the house is complete and we are living in it we have revamped out plans to stay in the house and moved the living in the barn to our emergency plan.

Life in General
The PACE system is easy to understand and follow, and gets easier as you do more of it. Pick any aspect of survival you want and work out a PACE plan. Say you want to have weapons in your plan. Okay, primary will be your MBR. Your alternate might be your shotgun or bow and arrow. Contingency, sling shot. Emergency, Atlatl and spear.

Back ups to the back ups are a necessary part of life. You already use them and probably never thought about them as an emergency plan. If your car dies what do you do, call a friend for a ride, take the bus or ride a bike? More than likely you are already PACE-ing yourself. Keep that mindset toward the forefront of your thoughts and your prepping should get easier and deeper. – Wolverine

Odds ‘n Sods:

Luke Z. wrote to ask about a source for the bayonet socket light bulb adapters that I mentioned in my novel “Patriots: Surviving the Coming Collapse” (These adapters allow standard table lamps to be converted to use 12 VDC with either automobile tail lights or bayonet-base halogen lights.) They no longer seem to be stocked by Real Goods, but they are currently available from Kansas Wind Power. (Scroll down to item # L450.)

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I hope that this article isn’t just hype or wishful thinking: Engineer Gets 110 MPG Out Of ’87 Mustang. (A hat tip to reader Kevin A.)

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John S. flagged this article from ABC News: Thousands Worldwide Prepare for the Apocalypse, Expected in 2012. Its because of the “end date” of the Mayan calendar, dontcha know… While their motivation is based on a very dubious premise, I can at least commend them for their preparedness.

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David in Israel sent us a link to an article with more details on how he “killdozer” attack in Israel was stopped: Men Who Killed Terrorist: Policeman Was in the Way

Jim’s Quote of the Day:

“I learned from my two year’s experiment that it would cost incredibly little trouble to obtain one’s necessary food, even in this latitude; that many a man may use as simple a diet as the animals, and yet retain health and strength.” – Henry Thoreau, Walden, 1854

Note from JWR:

Happy Independence Day! May God continue to grant his grace on our nation.

An update: Reader KAF sent us a video blog link to a re-up ceremony in Baghdad: How did you spend Independence Day?

Buying Storage Food Locally–Prepare While Keeping a Low Profile






Food storage is perhaps the single most important preparedness measure that every family should take. It is insurance against any number of perils, ranging from natural disasters and disruption of transportation to something as mundane as simply being laid off from work. In part because of galloping food and fuel prices and some spot shortages at the wholesale level, demand has recently far exceeded supply for most long term food storage vendors. Many vendors now have orders backed up for as much as three months. I most strongly recommend that you get your family’s food storage squared away soon, before the vendor order backlogs stretch out even longer.

If possible, buy locally and haul it yourself. Not only will you save money on shipping, but your will also have the opportunity to keep a lower profile. If you pay in greenback cash, and they ask you for a name, just say “Mr. Cash”. For those that value their privacy there are fortunately food storage vendors throughout the United States. As listed below, several of them advertise of SurvivalBlog.

Our paying advertisers that sell storage food include:

APACK – Evansville, Indiana
Freeze Dry Guy – Grass Valley, California
JRH Enterprises – West Green, Georgia
Ready Made Resources – Tellico Plains, Tennessee
Safecastle – Prior Lake, Minnesota
Best Prices Storable Foods – Quinlan, Texas
CampingSurvival.com – Fulton, New York
Healthy Harvest – Vancouver, Washington
American Made Survival – New York State

Our affiliate advertisers that sell storage food include:

Nitro-Pak – Heber City, Utah
eVitamins – Southeastern Michigan

Other reputable vendors that sell storage food include:

Walton Feed – Montpelier, Idaho
Mountain Brook Foods – Chubbuck, Idaho (a former SurvivalBlog advertiser)
EM Gear – Atlanta, Georgia (a former SurvivalBlog advertiser)
Honeyville Food Products – Salt Lake City, Utah; Brigham City, Utah; and Rancho Cucamonga, California

Another high priority for your family’s food security should be gardening seed. Long-term self sufficiency is the goal, since your stored food will probably be exhausted in a long-term crisis.

Our paying advertisers that sell non-hybrid (“heirloom variety”) garden seed include:

Seed for Security
Safecastle
Best Prices Storable Foods
Ready Made Resources
 Healthy Harvest
 Everlasting Seeds

Letter Re: Securing Needed Prescriptions for Family Preparedness

Jim,
I’ve been stockpiling medicine since before it was fashionable. My dad is a physician and gave me an Rx for ciprofloxacin and other antibiotics before 9/11 (in prep for Y2K). That is all refrigerated and despite official expiration dates, probably still fine. More recently, my dentist wrote me an Rx for TamiFlu. I won’t drag on about it, but the bottom line is that virtually anyone with a medical degree who is semi like-minded can give you an Rx for whatever you want. All you have to do is assure them you are only worried about shortages and won’t administer the medicine until a doctor has okayed it. My insurance co-pay: $4.68 for two adult courses of TamiFlu. My insurance is great, YMMV. Regards, – Matt R.

Letter Re: Economic Gloom and Doom is Justified

Jim,
Ironically, just a day after I wrote an e-mail chiding you [for giving too much attention to economic gloom and doom in SurvivalBlog], I had a meeting with one of our clients that has been a very successful Wall Street trader. He gave me a laundry list of banks that he expects to fail before the end of the year and predicted a complete collapse of the financial sector. Worse [for us], since we are in Michigan, he said that some of the Big Three auto makers are in serious trouble.

When I asked him where he saw the financial sector ending up, his response was that he had "never lived through a depression" so he had no real idea. Not exactly the response I was hoping for. – JMM

Odds ‘n Sods:

Jack B. recommended a very interesting series of video clips from a seminar presented by economist Don McAlvany.

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Today is the last day for BulletProofME.com’s special sale on Interceptor Body Armor and Kevlar helmets, just for SurvivalBlog readers.

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Facing a soaring trade deficit and 25% annual currency inflation, the government of Vietnam has just banned gold imports. I guess that Vietnam’s bureaucrats failed Econ 101.The citizenry rushing toward the stability of gold isn’t the cause of economic trouble. Rather, it is a symptom of a horribly mismanaged currency. In the absence of national treasury restraint, it doesn’t take much for a troubled currency to tip over into something approaching Zimbabwean scale hyperinflation. Our friends at The Daily Reckoning note that at last report, a pound of margarine cost 25 billion Zimbabwean dollars. But don’t blink. One rough estimate (based on the Rule of 72) shows that some consumer prices in the former Rhodesia are now doubling every 21 minutes.

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My recent mention of the possibility of looters using lightly-armored bulldozers prompted three readers to mention the 2004 “Killdozer” incident in Granby, Colorado. A YouTube video clip shows part of what happened. With that much armor, even AP ammo would not be effective. Upon seeing the video clip, our #1 Son commented: “That shows that the Second Amendment has applicability to civilians owning RPGs.”

Jim’s Quote of the Day:

"With respect to our rights, and the acts of the British government contravening those rights, there was but one opinion on this side of the water. All American whigs thought alike on these subjects. When forced, therefore, to resort to arms for redress, an appeal to the tribunal of the world was deemed proper for our justification. This was the object of the Declaration of Independence. Not to find out new principles, or new arguments, never before thought of, not merely to say things which had never been said before; but to place before mankind the common sense of the subject, in terms so plain and firm as to command their assent, and to justify ourselves in the independent stand we are compelled to take. Neither aiming at originality of principle or sentiment, nor yet copied from any particular and previous writing, it was intended to be an expression of the American mind, and to give to that expression the proper tone and spirit called for by the occasion. All its authority rests then on the harmonizing sentiments of the day, whether expressed in conversation, in letters, printed essays, or in the elementary books of public right, as Aristotle, Cicero, Locke, Sidney, et cetera." – Thomas Jefferson, letter to Henry Lee, May 8, 1825