by TheCallUp
FDA Considers Permitting Popular Prescriptions To Be Sold Over-The-Counter
7:49 pm in Uncategorized by TheCallUp
Originally published at AlterPolitics
In an effort to make medications more easily available to Americans, the FDA may allow prescription drugs which combat chronic illnesses, such as high cholesterol, diabetes, asthma, and migraine headaches, to be purchased over-the-counter (OTC).
Photo by e-Magineart.com
The FDA outlined the rationale behind its proposal:
Getting medicines into the hands of consumers has become troublesome over the last few years. Research shows that for a variety of reasons, 20 percent of patients with prescriptions do not get them filled. In addition, the time or cost required visiting a doctor to receive a prescription or refill often stops patients.
The Food and Drug Administration thinks that some of these doctor visits can be eliminated. It is exploring ways to make drugs for common conditions available as nonprescription products. Under this paradigm, the agency would approve drugs — that would otherwise require a prescription — for over-the-counter (OTC) distribution, if certain conditions are followed.
The agency is presently in an exploratory phase, encouraging input from all stakeholders, including doctors, pharmaceuticals, insurers, pharmacists, and patients.
It should come as no surprise that the move has pitted two powerful interest groups against one another: BigPharma, who stands to gain direct access to millions of consumers, and doctors, who stand to lose a lot of office visits, and their corresponding fees, for writing prescriptions and their refills.
Pharmaceutical companies have long complained that the restrictions placed upon them in getting their medications into the hands of those who need them is more cumbersome in the U.S. than anywhere else in the world.
