It’s the Buy-One-Get-One-Free special stores don’t advertise: Buy some chicken, get some meds for free.

And just to make it more convenient for everyone, the drugs aren’t in their own package — they’re already inside the chicken.

Chickens raised on factory farms are being fed everything from banned antibiotics to painkillers — and some are even poisoned with arsenic — all in the name of raising the fattest and pinkest possible birds in the shortest possible time.

Now, two new studies on chicken feathers (which hold traces of drugs and other toxins fed to the birds) show just how many meds are pumped into them — and remember, whatever that chicken eats is what ends up on your plate on Chicken Night:

Caffeine: You know people who seem to eat every waking minute, right? Chickens are like them. Keep them awake longer, and they’ll eat more and get fatter. But caffeine also makes chickens jittery (just like it does to some people), and since jittery chickens have tougher meat, they need something to help them to relax before they turn into tough old birds.

Prozac: One feather-meal sample from China found this antidepressant, and it’s almost certainly there to help counter the caffeine and keep the chickens relaxed so their meat doesn’t get leather-tough. And it’s not the only drug that can have that effect.

Benadryl & Acetaminophen: These drugs turned up in the U.S. samples, and not because the chickens have allergies or need pain relief. It’s because, like Prozac, these drugs can also relax the chickens and help keep the meat tender.

Antibiotics: Factory farm chickens are kept in such cramped and filthy conditions that illness is a much bigger threat than the wolf ever was. So the birds are drugged to preemptively protect them from a rapidly spreading infection — and, conveniently, the drugs also help them to gain weight. The researchers found a class of antibiotics banned from poultry… but it looks like that ban is about as strong as a rubber chicken.

Arsenic: It’s crazy, but this is actually allowed. Arsenic kills two birds with one stone (so to speak) because it kills bacteria and keeps the meat nice and pink. The problem, of course, is that it’s arsenic — and when you eat a bird fed this poison, you’re getting a little dose of poison yourself.

It’s enough to keep chicken off the menu for good, but you don’t have to go that far. Just go organic instead.

And for more on food ingredients and additives — including a few you just won’t believe — keep an eye on your inbox on Sunday for my Weekend Roundup.

It’s one of the Holy Grails of the drug industry: A pill to end hot flashes.

Think that’s a big market? You bet it is! Up to 80 percent of all women battle hot flashes during menopause, making a would-be treatment a billion-dollar dream for the drug industry.

But for women, that dream is more like a nightmare as they play guinea pig. Instead of being given safe, natural, and proven treatments for their hot flashes, they’re given unproven antidepressants, risky anti-seizure drugs, and even blood pressure meds… and almost all of them are being used off-label.

It’s a massive public health experiment that’s hurt far more women that it’s ever helped.

But you don’t need to swallow those pills, or face side effects, to get some relief, because the latest research points to a pair of easy, drug-free solutions: ordinary group therapy and self-help.

Researchers recruited 140 women who reported hot flashes and night sweats at least 10 times a week and assigned them to either group therapy, self-help, or no treatment at all.

The groups met four times a month, while those who got self-help had one meeting and a phone call with a shrink, but after that relied on a book and CD.

Six weeks later, 73 percent of the women who got self-help reported meaningful improvements, compared to 65 percent of those in group therapy, and 21 percent of those who got no treatment at all.

And six months later, those improvements held.

Of course, therapy didn’t quite work for everyone. But therapy isn’t your only option here, either, because there are other proven natural ways to get safe drug-free relief from the worst symptoms of menopause.

One recent study found that aerobic exercise can slash the number of hot flashes — and a recent follow-up finds that getting sweaty four days a week can beat the other signs of “the change” as well, including night sweats, mood swings, irritability, and more.

Other safe options backed by science include acupuncture — which beat sham acupuncture in one study on hot flashes — as well as a combination of St. John’s wort and black cohosh. And, of course, many women get through menopause with the help of custom-made bio-identical hormones.

An experienced naturopathic physician can help find which option is best for you.

Turns out antidepressants are even worse than ineffective: In a huge number of patients, they can actually make depression worse.

And that’s not even including the people who take these meds and actually kill themselves — a known side effect of some antidepressants.

Researchers looked at data from seven studies that compared either the drug Cymbalta or another SSRI antidepressant to a placebo and found that 76.3 percent of the patients responded to anything at all — including the placebo.

They claim people who took the med did better than those on the placebo — but then again, they only looked at six studies. Other studies have found that placebos work every bit as well as common antidepressants.

But the point here isn’t the remarkable power of the placebo — it’s that at least the placebo didn’t make the depression worse. You can’t say the same about meds: Up to a fifth of all patients who took antidepressants ended up with worse depression.

Since close to 30 million Americans take antidepressants each year, that means nearly 6 million people are actually getting worse instead of better because of the “cure.”

Some cure.

And along with making the depression worse, common antidepressant drugs have been linked to stroke, suicide, personality changes, cognitive decline and sex problems… just to name a few of the biggies.

I know that beating depression isn’t always easy — but you don’t have to take those risks to do it. As I’ve told you in the past, St. John’s wort has proven to be at least as effective as meds — at least as effective as meds when they actually work, I should add — with very little risk.

Another natural option is the amino acid SAMe, which is so effective it’s widely used instead of meds in Europe. In addition, exercise, talk therapy and magnetic therapy have all shown they can help beat depression — including the kinds of serious depression you think you’ll never get over.

For more on the best ways to beat depression without going near a pill bottle, visit the Web site of the Health Sciences Institute and enter “depression” into the find a cure box.

I’m always puzzled by the millions of people who take dangerous meds that barely work in the first place — but now I’m starting to see why: They have no idea what they’re in for.

A new survey finds that 40 percent of Americans believe the FDA only gives the OK to “extremely effective” meds — and 25 percent believe FDA-approved drugs don’t have serious side effects.

Even the FDA will tell you that’s not the case.

Drugs don’t have to be safe to win approval: Meds that win passage often have severe and terrifying side effects, up to and including death itself. And they don’t even have to be especially effective, either: Some meds work for less than half of the people who take them… yet get approved anyway.

Just look at all the studies on everything from painkillers to antidepressants in which the drugs barely beat placebos.

So the real secret to drug approval isn’t in safety or even effectiveness — it’s in passing the FDA’s nebulous and industry-friendly “risk vs. benefits” calculation.

Sounds like some delicate balancing act, right?

In reality, it’s about as delicate as a hippo playing seesaw with a mouse. I don’t think I need to tell you which one of those animals represents “risk” — and in many cases, meds win approval before all those risks are even known.

The survey also finds that warning labels might help people reconsider meds… sort of.

In one case, when given a choice between two fictional heartburn meds, patients reflexively chose the one they believed to be newer. But when given a warning that new drugs might carry more serious risks that aren’t yet known, the majority switched to the older one.

In another, participants choosing between two cholesterol meds reconsidered when told one contained a warning that said “It is not known whether it will help patients feel better or live longer.”

But out in the real world, patients rarely compare meds they way they do spaghetti sauce. In most cases, the doctor prescribes and the patient complies — and that’s why millions of people take drugs they barely understand for conditions they might not even have… like cholesterol and heartburn.

You should always read the warnings, of course — but before you even get a prescription bottle in your hand, you need to ask your doctor a series of questions.

Keep reading for more.