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Americans may soon be able to get cholesterol-lowering medications and other widely used prescription drugs without seeing a doctor, a first step in what could amount to sweeping changes to how patients access treatments for chronic conditions.
The Food and Drug Administration in a draft guideline on Tuesday outlined how such a status, which the agency said could help lower health-care costs, would work. Patients could answer questions on a mobile-phone app to help determine whether they should be able to access a medication without a prescription.
"Our hope is that the steps we're taking to advance this new, more modern framework will contribute to lower costs for our health care system overall and provide greater efficiency and empowerment for consumers by increasing the availability of certain products that would otherwise be available only by prescription," FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb said in a statement.
Order your drugs from a smartphone app.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by AndyTheAbsurd on Thursday July 19 2018, @11:52AM (19 children)
Can we just go back to being able to get codeine and pseudoephedrine OTC like people that actually give a damn about getting effective drugs? Phenylephrine is fucking useless and codeine is more effective than all the current OTC painkillers.
Please note my username before responding. You may have been trolled.
(Score: 3, Informative) by bzipitidoo on Thursday July 19 2018, @12:08PM (14 children)
I ran into that pseudoephedrine vs phenylephrine. You can get them both OTC, but for the former they make you jump through a few extra hoops. Don't need a prescription, but they keep it inside the pharmacy out of immediate reach so they can have you sign an acknowledgment before they sell it to you. And they won't sell you more than 20 pills or so per day. All that is the War on Drugs, because it's supposed to be easy to turn into meth. The latter is in the store aisles.
And then in our case the pseudoephedrine turned out not to help much either. Helped a little at first, but the underlying problem was not allergies. And it is more of a strain on the heart. You're right about the phenylephrine-- didn't do anything.
(Score: 2) by fadrian on Thursday July 19 2018, @12:35PM (12 children)
You can't get pseudoephedrine in all states without a prescription. At least, here in Oregon, you need one.
Yes, it's a pain in the ass. No, it doesn't make the place a totalitarian hellhole.
That is all.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by bzipitidoo on Thursday July 19 2018, @12:57PM (5 children)
My experience was with Texas.
One thing about Oregon that stands out in my memory is full service gas, only. Only other place I encountered that one was Manitoba. They won't let you pump gas yourself, and as I learned, that's bad. If you ask them to fill it up, the attendants will overfill your tank and some will slosh out-- gasoline is kinda hard on the paint job, you know. And some even deliberately pump a little onto the ground, to "make it come out even". It was pathetic to see those teenage attendants liking that law because it gave them jobs.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Thursday July 19 2018, @02:29PM (2 children)
So - uhhh - let me cross examine you just a little bit. In Texas, I can get pseudephedrine, in limited quantities, without a prescription, today? If so, I simply didn't know it. I only live 25 miles from New Boston, Tx. Here in Arkansas, I was flat out told that I couldn't get it without a script, quite a number of years ago. So, I didn't even try to get any, unless the doctor filled out his paperwork.
If so, I'll be making a quick trip to either New Boston, or Texarkana, soon, just to get a bottle. I don't care that it's limited quantities - I don't plan on misusing the stuff. I certainly have no interest in meth!!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 19 2018, @05:10PM (1 child)
You can. It's a behind the counter drug, so you have to go to the pharmacy counter, you'll need an ID, and they limit the amount you can buy per month (they do track it). Pain in the butt, but better than nothing.
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Thursday July 19 2018, @10:24PM
Correct. They will ask to see your driver's license so they can flag it in case you try to go to another store and buy more on the same day. Might want to call first, check if an AR license is acceptable before driving over.
I don't recall the limit either, think 20 pills per person per day. Bring several adults with IDs with you, and they will let you have 20 pills per person, all at once.
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Thursday July 19 2018, @04:51PM (1 child)
New Jersey is the same: not allowed to pump your own gasoline.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 20 2018, @02:33PM
Why? That sounds.. stupid..
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Phoenix666 on Thursday July 19 2018, @01:58PM (4 children)
It's why I stock up on drugs I know are useful, like anti-biotics, whenever I travel to a 3rd World Country, exactly because they don't make you jump through doctor and insurance hoops. You got the cash, they got the meds.
We talk about FLOSS all the time in our community, and folks have started talking about Open Harware, Open Cars, and that sort of thing, so I'd add that it would be great to start talking about Open Medication. Yes, I'm aware of potential pitfalls, but I'm also keenly aware of what a racket Drug companies have going.
For me, it's a question of freedom. Every single time we let ourselves depend on a corporation or government to do something, they turn right around and abuse it. If we give ourselves the means to walk away then it levels the playing field.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 19 2018, @02:05PM
Fuck the pitfalls. Give me a chemputer that prints antibiotics, LSD, cocaine, heroin, or whatever. The DEA never had a high ground to lose.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by DeathMonkey on Thursday July 19 2018, @04:53PM (2 children)
My personal philosophy is that all drugs should be legal for individuals to purchase. This includes all prescription drugs.
The implementation would be a phased approach where we slowly introduce new drugs in reverse-order of harm. E.g. crack would probably go last.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Thursday July 19 2018, @05:37PM (1 child)
I'm not sure I agree about this for anti-biotics, but where the only damage is done to the person taking the drugs I'm fine with it. But I think that the laws allowing the advertising of drugs are far too loose. And I include alcohol on that list. (Not, however, coffee or tea. Despite the humor those are neither excessively dangerous nor addictive, and only slightly habituating.)
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Thursday July 19 2018, @05:45PM
I'm not sure I agree about this for anti-biotics, but where the only damage is done to the person taking the drugs I'm fine with it.
Hmm...hadn't really thought about antibiotics in that frame...
There is a compelling, direct, harm to the public there.
However, it's not taking the drugs that's the problem. It's not-taking the drugs that's the problem.
Id' rather see failing to complete the course of antibiotics be illegal than starting an unapproved course in the first place . Although....I have no idea how you'd implement something like that.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 20 2018, @01:48AM
Though you may be singing a different tune when the government comes for you, because you bought over your allocated amount before the 31 day window was over.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 19 2018, @02:51PM
Yeah, that is because the chemical makeup of the two is identical, but they are mirror images of each other. The thing is, that getting the one to switch to the other is harder than just making it from other sources, but that doesn't stop them from making your life harder because someone thinks it seems too similar.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 19 2018, @02:22PM (2 children)
This is Australia son. In order to save a few hundred people from killing themselves using codeine you must have a script. If a doctor will write you one. If you are willing to store your medical data in the government myhealth record system so they can sell the info to companies. Suck it up princess. Take 2 asprin and slap yourself in the face in the morning.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Thursday July 19 2018, @02:32PM (1 child)
Wow, that sounded awesome. Almost as awesome as https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eZeYVIWz99I [youtube.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 20 2018, @04:10AM
Our pollies are awesome
they just want to protect us
really
(Score: 3, Informative) by Taibhsear on Thursday July 19 2018, @03:48PM
Assuming you aren't one of the 10% or so of people (like myself) who are effectively immune to codeine. I believe 4-5% of people metabolize it better than normal too. So if you are in that group and don't realize it, taking it over the counter could really fuck you up. Whereas if you're in the former group you're just pissing away your money.
"The conversion of codeine to morphine is effected by CYP2D6. Well-characterized genetic polymorphisms in CYP2D6 lead to the inability to convert codeine to morphine, thus making codeine ineffective as an analgesic for approximately 10% of the white population. Other polymorphisms can lead to enhanced metabolism and thus to increased sensitivity to the effects of codeine. Variation in metabolic efficiency is evident among ethnic groups. For example, Chinese individuals produce less morphine from codeine than whites and are less sensitive to the effects of morphine." -Gregory R. Polston, Mark S. Wallace, in Kelley and Firestein's Textbook of Rheumatology (Tenth Edition), 2017