Discussion Board

"FDA Mulls Making Key Prescription Drugs Available Over-the-Counter

A number of widely used prescription drugs could be sold over-the-counter under a new proposal being considered by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

The agency is thinking about eliminating prescription requirements for certain drugs used to treat such conditions as high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes, asthma and migraine, the Associated Press reported.

FDA officials said making it easier for patients to obtain these medications could help tackle undertreated health epidemics such as diabetes, which is a leading cause of heart disease and stroke.

More than 25 million Americans have diabetes, but about 7 million have not been diagnosed and therefore do not receive treatment.

The move to make certain prescription medications available over-the-counter is being driven by computer technology, such as touch-screen kiosks in pharmacies, which helps patients self-diagnose common diseases, according to the AP.

It's one of several FDA proposals meant to improve patient access to established drugs or to accelerate approval of experimental medications.

"These are discussions that need to start happening as we think about people's health needs and how to improve access," said FDA Commissioner Dr. Margaret Hamburg, the AP reported."


Gee, I wonder if the drug companies are anxious to see prescription meds become more widely available!!!! Talk about a bad idea.
f1jim

OMG, I am so sick of the legal drug pushers in this country!

This is the expected result of what happens when pharmaceutical corporations are allowed to run the FDA. I'm surprised that it took them this long...

POLITICS....I swear..we just need to get rid of everyone in Washington DC..and start over from a non tainted pool
Yeah I know..pipe dream

Honestly I resent having to get an rx for anything. Sure there are people that will use drugs irresponsibly, but they do so even with an rx and even readily available drugs like acetaminophen can kill you, so why have to pay a couple hundred dollars just to sit in a waiting room for an hour and have the two minute privilege of begging some guy with a special pad to get some albuteral, et al. It's ridiculous, imao. Unfortunately most doctors have too many patients and too little time to really get to know them so they are just going through the same process to come up with an rx as would happen at a kiosk in any case, so it makes perfect sense to me. Sounds liberating.

I have mixed feelings about it. Anything that makes people take greater responsibility for their own health is a step in the right direction. I think we all have the folly of believing that, when Dr. Tom came along in his leather vest selling snake oil from the back of a horse drawn wagon, we'd be too savy to fall for it. It may take more painful lessons to be as street wise with Dr. Tom in the garbardine vest from the sunroof of his limo. But , ultimately, we all have to learn that health is not something that is going to be handed to us from a bottle or a a scalpel. For many of us, I'm afraid that education may involve a lot of pill popping and surgery.

Mark

True. Having prescription drug commercials become widespread on TV was bad enough... now this.

It used to be very disconcerting when patients came into the office demanding the latest and greatest medication for some real or imagined malady after watching a pharmaceutical ad for a new med on TV... Often times after the pharmaceutical corporations would change and or manipulate just one molecule in an older medication to make it marketable for an entire new class of illnesses...

Profits before people...

Why not just put them into the municipal water supplies, like fluoride? That will fix everything, right?