I have a bucket of drugs in one of my kitchen cabinets, stored way up high and out of the reach of two busy little boys. For a short time during my breast cancer treatment I reached for this container every day. Lately, though, I have little use for this medley of medication. There are some things I use -- like cough medicine made for little people and ibuprofen for the occasional headache -- but mostly, we are a drug-free household. So really, I don't need much of what I'm storing in that cabinet. Much of it is so old, in fact, it has probably expired.

Every once in a while, we should all take a tour through our medicine cabinets and peek at the expiration dates on our prescriptions and over-the-counter bottles. If anything is expired, toss it! Expired medications do not work. In some cases, they can be toxic if consumed after their deadline dates.

To find out more about the shelf life of common medicine cabinet products, click here. To learn more about safely disposing of expired medications, click here.

Yesterday, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) proposed a ban on over-the-counter (OTC) sales of skin-lightening products containing hydroquinone. Hydroquinone is found in skin bleaching products used primarily for lightening age spots, skin discoloration from years of excess tanning or dark under-eye circles. Research has indicated a possible link to increased cancers.

In the US, there are over 65 companies selling more than 200 skin-bleaching products that contain hydroquinone. Hydroquinone has been banned in Japan, the European Union and Australia. The FDA now wants all OTC and prescription skin-lightening products containing hydroquinone to be classified as new drugs and companies making the skin-bleaching products would need to seek FDA approval to sell them. Likely, the products would stop being available as an OTC product. The proposed ban means that the FDA will take public comments until the end of this year before making any final action.

NIRScanner is a battery-operated hand-held infrared-based optical scanning device that the developers claim is both affordable and safe and could be used by women as an at-home personal health care solution to the early detection of breast cancer.

However, Drexel University and the University of Pennsylvania scientists state the device is not designed to replace mammography, ultrasound, or other methods of screening for breast cancer, only that it offers an additional method of detection, much the same as monthly self-exams, only far more accurate at early detection. The simple device surpasses self-exam by touch in that it can detect changes in the breast that traditional self-exam could not, and the developers state that it would alert women to seek medical attention should the device detect a problem in the breast.

The NIRScanner makes steady low beeps as it moves over the breast. Using a type of near-infrared light that travels deep into breast tissue, if the hand-held device detects a tumor the beep tone gets higher. A microchip stores the information on the size and location of the tumor as the patient performs the self-examination and the information can be taken to be analyzed on a computer by a physician.

Although the researchers state that the device proved to be accurate over 90 percent of the time, it is still being tested, and needs funding to be brought to market. To read more about the NIRScanner, they have made an illustrated brochure available as a PDF document.

While the effectiveness of a seaweed extract acting as a potent inhibitor of human papilloma viruses, HPV, that can lead in some cases to cervical cancer, has not been tested in any human clinical trials -- in the lab it has impressed the National Cancer Institute researchers who have been studying it.

According to researchers, carrageenan extracted from marine red algae (seaweed) showed a thousand-fold greater potency compared with other inhibitors they have tested in halting HPV.

Dr. John Schiller, senior investigator at the National Cancer Institute, who was involved in the development of the HPV vaccine, made the carrageenan discovery.

Schiller cautions that the results do not prove that carrageenan will work as a practical HPV topical microbicide. However, the positive results in the lab, together with the fact that carrageenan-based over-the-counter products are already available -- make carrageenan look even more promising to researchers in blocking the sexual transmission of HPV.

The new cervical cancer vaccine is effective for about 70 percent of the HPV viruses that can cause cervical cancer. It is also an expensive vaccine that might prove cost prohibitive for low-income women in economically distressed countries. The researchers think, if carrageenan proves as effective in human clinical trails as it has in the lab, the inexpensive carrageenan could be a significant benefit in the prevention of HPV.

One researcher, Dr. Connie Trimble, an HPV researcher at Johns Hopkins University, feels so positive about the recent advancements and discoveries in relation to cervical cancer that she said, "With all the potential tools now, we could really start to think about the end of cervical cancer. Between the vaccines and some of the prophylactics -- wouldn't that be a medical success story!"

According to Athens University researchers, taking paracetamol daily could reduce, by 30 percent, the risk of ovarian cancer. But the researchers warn that it might not be the best choice in cancer prevention. Why? Because taking paracetamol can lead to serious liver and kidney damage.

The words acetaminophen and paracetamol both come from the chemical names for the compound N-acetyl-para-aminophenol and para-acetyl-amino-phenol. In North America, paracetamol is sold in generic form or under a number of trade names like Tylenol, Anacin-3 and Datril. In Europe, it is known as Panadol.

In another recent study, Tylenol was found to cause liver damage even in small doses in just two weeks after taking the painkiller daily.

Dr. Neil Kaplowitz of the University of Southern California, hired by Purdue Pharma, which makes the prescription painkiller OxyContin to look into the effects of Tylenol on the liver said, "I would urge the public not to exceed 4 grams (eight extra-strength tablets) a day. This is a drug that has a rather narrow safety window." Heavy drinkers should not exceed 2 grams a day. But the makers of Tylenol argue that the study this study does not reflect the findings of the studies they have done on their product and that long-term high-dose Tylenol did not lead to liver disease.

The bottom line? Ovarian cancer does not occur as commonly as some of the other cancers, but it tends to be far more deadly unless caught in the earliest stage of development. Paracetamol or Tylenol, does and does not carry serious side effects, depending on the study and who is doing the study. Prevention, better methods of detection and more effective treatments would seem to be a better route in ovarian cancer prevention and cancer survivorship. But that does not help right now, for women who are concerned about being diagnosed with ovarian cancer and being told in the news there is an over-the-counter drug that might reduce the risk. Even though their study shows a benefit, Athens University researchers warn that deciding to take paracetamol as part of an ovarian cancer prevention strategy needs to carefully considered.

Public Citizen, a consumer watchdog group, has petitioned the Food and Drug Administration, FDA, to remove Xenical, a prescription obesity drug, off the market due to fears it can lead to breast and colon cancer. At this time, there is also the possibility the weight loss drug will be approved for over-the-counter sales, and the consumer group is asking the FDA to refuse approval of that move. However, last week, in a potentially disturbing turn of event, the FDA granted drug company GlaxoSmithKline conditional approval for the drug to be sold without a prescription as long as it met certain undisclosed criteria.

Dr. Sidney Wolfe, director of Public Citizen's Health Research Group, said in a statement, "The failure to ban the prescription version of this drug or worse, to make it much more widely available by allowing OTC sales, is a decision that is likely to increase cancer incidence."

In the past, Public Citizen has alerted consumers about the dangers of Vioxx, Ephedra, Bextra, Rezulin, Baycol, Propulsid and many other drugs years before the drugs were pulled from the market.