medication

We live in the age of “go-bags”, survival kits kept at the ready to combat just about any worst-case scenario emergencies one might be able to imagine. They’re packed with multi-tools, flashlights, Tamiflu--you name it.

Prepare to make room for a new pill that might be able to directly counteract the effects of (knock on wood) nuclear fallout.

The YouTube promo for Zhen de Shou weight-loss capsules is farcical: The camera slowly pans across photos of depressed overweight girls becoming euphorically thin and warns, "Beware of cheap imitations." But the ad hides a real danger. According to recent tests by the Food and Drug Administration, Zhen de Shou and 68 other weight-loss supplements manufactured in the U.S. and abroad contain undeclared pharmaceuticals. That means millions of Americans popping over-the-counter diet pills might also be unwittingly ingesting medication at potentially deadly doses.

Take your medication with a gun made by PowderMed in Oxford, England, and the drugs will blast into your skin at 1,500 miles per hour. “You hear the sound, so you know it’s gone off,” explains Mark Kendall, a mechanical engineer at the University of Oxford and co-inventor of the flashlight-shaped disposable device.