With any illness or flu, especially with the recent appearance of Swine Flu in the United States, employers should be open to the fact that their employees might become ill. What employers need to take into consideration are the concepts of "Absenteeism" and "Presenteeism." Absenteeism is when an employee doest not report to work usually due to an illness and their individual production grinds to a halt. "Presenteeism" occurs when an employee shows up for work sick and tries to function normally. Presenteeism usually results in lower individual worker output due to a tired and sick employee. Presenteeism also spreads germs to other employees resulting in sort of a chain reaction of workplace illness. Newly infected employees will contribute to the Abesenteeism and Presenteeism dynamic. The Center of Disease Control offers informative fact sheets about how to maintain a healthy workplace as well as updated information on the current Swine Flu.
The FDA recently voted in favor of pushing a new formulation of oxycodone hydrochloride for approval. The new OxyContin formula is more difficult to crush or dissolve which will hopefully make it harder to be used as a drug of abuse . The FDA recommended that Purdue Pharma's application for a new, resin-coated formulation should replace the original version, which has been on the market since 1996. Randall Flick, MD, an anesthesiologist at the Mayo Clinic who voted to recommend approval of the drug said, "Clearly the old formulation is worse than the new, although I think the difference is relatively small," Flick concluded, "Hardcore abusers are likely to devise new ways to break down the harder tablet or figure out which solvents will dissolve it fastest, within 'day or weeks' of the product's release on the market."