As celebrities and musicians travel the world raising awareness of the carbon footprints everyone is making on this planet and how much damage we are causing to Mother Earth, the Federal Drug Administration has made its dent in the fight against global warming and helping reduce the hole in the ozone layer. The battle over global warming has entered a new arena: health care.
The FDA will phase out albuterol, a common drug for asthma patients that relaxes their constrained airway muscles, by December 2008, U.S. World News ‘ Report reported. The reason: damage to the environment. The drug contains chlorofluorocarbons, which have largely been banned because of the destruction they cause to the ozone layer, which serves as a necessary protection against the sun’s harmful rays.
Since the 1970s, CFCs have been heavily regulated, and they were formally banned in the 1987 Montreal Protocol, an international treaty that was designed to phase our products containing CFCs.
The move could draw accolades from environmentalists, but it’s the side effects of the FDA’s decision that are hard to swallow.
With these tougher standards, drug manufactures have created CFC-free inhalers, but the price of these often necessary inhalers has skyrocketed for asthma patients. Instead of patients paying the general price for an albuterol inhaler, they are digging deep into their pockets: U.S. World News ‘ Report reported a woman’s medication bill going to $148 from $28.
The American Lung Association has found that 15 million Americans have asthma, and while the vast majority told the ALA that the diseases was easily managed, 84 percent of patients reported asthma has had a negative impact on their lives. The ALA’s latest survey found that three-fourths of patients had unscheduled doctor appointments over the past year because of their asthma attacks.
And while there are few people in this country that want the ozone layer to incur even more damage, the availability of basic health care should be taken into consideration when such public policies are implemented.
On average, asthma causes 1.8 million emergency room visits and about 500,000 hospitalizations annually, U.S. World News ‘ Report reported.
About 4,000 asthma-related deaths also occur.
At the same time that patients are feeling the pinch for this coming price hike, the four manufacturers of the CFC-inhalers will be profiting from the FDA’s ban. Brand-name medications, which can serve as alternatives for albuterol, are projected to increase in usage, the FDA reported, as a likely result of doctors trying to find alternatives for their patients.
Albuterol, like other drugs, does not eradicate the risk of having an asthma attack. The use of the drug, as doctors have pointed out, is for a quick relief for asthma sufferers.
So the question comes down to whether which should take precedence: the environment or human life. Obviously the environment’s well being is a necessity for human existence, and any damage to the biosphere will produce consequences for humans. But while the FDA has banned other damaging products, it seems odd for it to hand down such severe restrictions on a medication.
Let’s face it: An inhaler doesn’t produce the same harmful gases as a Hummer or some other SUV.
