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EPA Bans CFC-Based Asthma Inhalers
bonch writes "The EPA has banned over-the-counter asthma inhalers as part of an agreement with other nations to avoid using chlorofluorocarbons, a substance once used in aerosol sprays. Alternative albuterol inhalers cost almost three times as much as the $20 epinephrine inhalers sold by online retailers."
Government, EPA...what a bunch of idiots. Here we have an inexpensive asthma product, that helps MILLIONS of people each day, and now thanks to the government, it will costs those people MORE for a different product. One of the scariest things ever said was... "I'm from the federal government, and I'm here to HELP you".
What "ozone layer" is this you speak of?
What about those people who cannot afford the $60 inhalers? They're just SOL because Pharma convinced the FDA to ban a trivial source of CFCs?
Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
That's utter bullshit. The amount of compressed gas in asthma inhalers is minuscule. Even when you multiply that by thousands, the amount would be extremely modest. Besides, negative health outcomes by people who don't have inhalers they need (because they can't afford the 'green' ones) would far, far exceed any damage to the ozone layer.
God damn hippies.
And the pharmaceutical companies that patented the new "environmentally friendly" inhalers didn't do any lobbying on the issue I'm sure.
s/E/F/;
Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
OK, so, since the money will be saved by banning the $20 inhalers, how about the government pays the difference between whatever the new inhaler costs and the $20 that the old one did?
It may be an outrage to you but is it justifiable if you look at the big picture? Sure some may die because of these decisions but how many more die indirectly from producing and releasing these gasses?
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
that's all that matters to these people. Lining their pockets and making everyone else suffer the consequences.
One wonders if the price on the newer inhalers will come down, since there will be volume efficiencies when more of them are made.
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
the people using them agree to pay for the damage they cause.
This is actually extremely old news. A treaty was signed over a decade ago to ban various uses of CFCs in phases. The OTC epinephrine inhalers were pulled off of the market by the manufacturer some time ago due to a different reason (which I forget), then they decided to not restart production on it because CFC inhalers would be banned as of 1/1/2010.
Anyone that has asthma will tell you that things dramatically changed for them in 2010 when their old albuterol (fast-acting, for emergencies) inhalers were reformulated to not include CFCs (dubbed HFA, aka Hydrofluoroalkane) . Most HFA-using patients state that they cannot "feel" the aerosol or that it doesn't work nearly as well as the CFC-based ones.*
Point being, CFC inhalers haven't been around for a couple of years and we knew they were going away over a decade ago!
(*From my professional experience.)
TFA doesn't explain why changing the propellant chemical means that the active medical ingredient has to change as well. Why can't epinephrine be delivered via a non-CFC propellant?
No, it won't. There are no other non-prescription inhalers available. This is nothing more than a ploy to hurt us poor folks even more.
Fuck you, FDA.
Once the pharmaceutical companies start losing enough sales the price will come down.
Alternatively you could switch to a prescription inhaler, that is if you have insurance.
^^vv<><>BA
dear AC, you're wrong.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ozone_depletion
A single chlorine atom would keep on destroying ozone (thus a catalyst) for up to two years (the time scale for transport back down to the troposphere) were it not for reactions that remove them from this cycle by forming reservoir species such as hydrogen chloride (HCl) and chlorine nitrate (ClONO2). On a per atom basis, bromine is even more efficient than chlorine at destroying ozone, but there is much less bromine in the atmosphere at present. As a result, both chlorine and bromine contribute significantly to the overall ozone depletion. Laboratory studies have shown that fluorine and iodine atoms participate in analogous catalytic cycles. However, in the Earth's stratosphere, fluorine atoms react rapidly with water and methane to form strongly bound HF, while organic molecules which contain iodine react so rapidly in the lower atmosphere that they do not reach the stratosphere in significant quantities. Furthermore, a single chlorine atom is able to react with 100,000 ozone molecules.
Alternative albuterol inhalers cost almost three times as much as the $20 epinephrine inhalers sold by online retailers."
The worst part is that epinephrine you can get any time you want (like, say, in the middle of an asthma attack), but albuterol requires a prescription, which means schlepping to a doctor with all the associated costs and inconveniences.
Albuterol works a lot better, sure, but sometimes - when you need an inhaler and you need it NOW - its nice to know the good old Primatine Mist is available over the counter at the nearest drugstore.
SpyDock: Scientific Python in a Docker container
This is Slashdot so I wont be surprised if you are modded down to -1 Troll but, YOU ARE ABSOLUTELY CORRECT!!!
As I understand it, the ozone hole is currently closing. Clearly, these inhalers are not having a detrimental effect on the atmosphere.
But hey, Slashdot never lets facts get in the way of their zealot adherence to the religion of the environment (A.K.A. The human haters club!)
And what about people using $20 inhalers repaying to the rest of the world for global damage caused by ozone depletion?
I recommend not going to Walgreens or CVS - go to an independent pharmacy, you'll get better care there anyways and cheaper prices. Then, don't get Proventil or Proair, get Ventolin! Ventolin is the cheapest and Glaskosmith-Kline has $15 rebate checks they give to pharmacies sometimes (and no, I don't work for ANY Pharmas). You also may want to check their website because they have programs you can enroll in to get your meds for cheap/free, plus they may even have some coupons you can use there.
Albuterol inhalers have been around for over twenty years. The patents are lapsed. Does anyone know why albuterol inhalers are prescription only?
Right, because asthma is so trendy that we've all gone out and gotten it.
It's one thing to charge people for the side effects of their own decisions and quite another to charge people for something they were born with. Ultimately, I'd be more than happy to subsidize these for other people, because I wouldn't need it myself.
OK, ban the CFC propelled inhalers, fine. But why do the alternatives only have to be prescription? What is in them that makes it that you still can't create cheaper over the counter versions? If it's a patent issue then I'd think the government would have the intelligence to release such a patent for the good of the people. But that's not going to happen since getting a seat in the government means taking money from corporations, one wouldn't want to upset your path into office. But then us sheeple just vote for the candidate that spends the most on advertising. How many people actually research candidates (not the rheteroic they produce, but the history of votes and actions they have done). Sorry, I'm getting off topic, my on topic comment really is just that the real issue isn't the ban itself, but the lack of inexpensive over the counter alternatives. Are there really just no other options then a CFC propellent for an over the counter inhaled propellent? Use nitrous oxide, let them enjoy the asthma medicine at the same time.....
This has NOTHING TO DO with Pharma. moron.
well then they will get them for 10 bucks at wal-mart.
Wasn't this done in 2008?
http://www.fda.gov/ForConsumers/ConsumerUpdates/ucm048235.htm
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
From TFA:
So now that global warming has been exposed as a fraud we're supposed to be scared of the Sun as well? Leave it to tree huggers to care more about ozone, which is poisonous, than human life.
I don't know about you but I'm perfectly capable of purchasing sunscreen. For the amount of money I'd save with the tried-and-true inhalers I could probably buy enough sunscreen to protect myself from this so-called "ultraviolet" light for a decade or more.
I am continually amazed that people want the government to pass laws in the name of environmental protection -- if someone is polluting your air or water you don't need to call the EPA, you should be exercising your individual property rights the way our founding fathers intended.
And what about people that could not afford the $20 inhalers in the first place??
Oh great.
I used to be able to count on getting to any 24hr pharmacy (and most local 24hr supermarkets) and purchasing Primatene Mist (or an equivalent) if suffering an asthma attack.
So now I have to stock up on the works-less-well-for-me albuterol from a doctor's prescription? And if I am out have to run to the ER to get the now-only-available-by-prescription medicines? (Yes, yes: In a perfect world I would never run out, and always have a Rx solution on hand, but sh*t happens.)
Not. Happy.
I would rather they simply switch from a CFC propellant to something else, and keep such medicines as over-the-counter and CFC free.
Uh, Linux geek since 1999.
This contradicts my instincts about the chemistry of our atmosphere. Just who performed these "laboratory studies"? If they were funded by government money in any way then they are probably part of the vast left-wing conspiracy to debunk my gut feelings.
The cost of unleaded gasoline was astronomical in the early 1970s - because unleaded gasoline was produced in relatively small batches and could not compete at scale with leaded gasoline. When leaded gasoline was banned, we were all told that we'd be paying more for gasoline. In fact, the price of unleaded gasoline production fell. The important thing is that the mean blood lead level in 1975 was 15.5 g/dl. The mean blood lead level today is less than 2g/dl. Urban IQs are rising. What does this mean for phasing CFCs out of inhalers? I don't know, but the people who scream every time a new technology has to make transition to scale tend not to make the world any better.
Gently reply
We're getting deep into ecological debt as it is. Do you really want us to live as a bunch of locusts until the planet is bare and we all die?
Pharmacist here. I can't recommend the Ventolin enough. It is cheaper and it has a dose counter.
The new inhaler with no insurance? $60. Before? $30
Less pressure, not as effective in getting the meds to my lungs.
I now order them from mexico, same old good stuff that works.
Except that the summary is overtly lying - the albuterol inhalers cost as little as $30. It's even in the linked article.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
here's a novel idea - why are albuterol inhalers (I've had them for 20 years now) prescription at all? they want to do this? MAKE ALBUTEROL OVER THE COUNTER!
CS majors know the time/space tradeoff, but they never get taught the 3rd, crucial, tradeoff of the set: comprehension!
Yeah, and that Clean Water Act. Awful. Lake Erie was quite beautiful aflame.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
How much CFC do you really think is in there?
I'm all for certain types of regulations, but this one is just stupid. Why doesnt the FDA encourage the use of a different propellent instead?
You are entitled to your own opinions, not your own facts.
being propagated through the media. Probably written by some anti regulation type; or it's plain shoddy 'reporting'.
a) There is a non- CFC primatine mist coming out.
http://www.empr.com/update-on-primatene-mist-discontinuation/article/208381/
b) this has been a phased roll out since 2008
c) albuterol was the first to be regulated to be CFC free.
d) The corporation the make CFC products stalled in making a replacement in order to maximize there profits, and probably to make regulation seem bad.
e) the only impact CFC inhalers, not over the cuonter inhalers. So you will see OTC inhalers, probably soon.
Whoever wrote that article should be slapped up side the head for sowing discontent in the populace with factual lies.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Can we have something other than a Wikipedia article as a source? It seems to me that just because a single chlorine atom CAN react with 100,000 ozone molecules doesn't mean it will or that it does on average.
What's the actual damage to the ozone layer from these devices?
Is the cost of that damage more or less than the cost of banning these devices?
They do and have been, for years.
companies delayed in getting there non CFC OTC inhalers approved. They are in the process of approval. I f the corporation moved right away, the OTC non CFC inhalers would be on the shelves. But they didn't and now the blame the government and push this story out to every media. Just look, it's the same exact story in every media.
If the FDA delays, then I would bet the companies would delay there release of the OTC non CFC because the make more money from those.
1-2 million people, squirting CFC into the air every day? it adds up.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
We're hitting this up? I feel like there's much bigger fish to fry. Fuel used by ships in international waters is pretty much a free for all. I bet one ship, hitting a headwind once throws more crap into the atmosphere than all the inhalers in the US combined for a year.
Plus now all the people there that used to have jobs are unemployed so they the time to enjoy the lake.
I love Jesus, except for his foreign policy.
Man are you a member Sierra Club? What are there too many people on the planet, I know lets start with the people with asthma and work up list of chronic diseases by the "damage" they do to the "planet"!
A*hole.
Walgreens as always given me excellent service.
I haven't used the for Asthma, but other thing. Certainly no worse then my 'local' pharmacy; which was more expensive so I don't go back.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
It's okay. Babies don't have jobs and cars so they can't drive to drugstores to buy Ventolin. See, it's self-correcting!
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
here's a novel idea - why are albuterol inhalers (I've had them for 20 years now) prescription at all? they want to do this? MAKE ALBUTEROL OVER THE COUNTER!
The answer is in the question.
The lifetime of pharma patents is 21 years + extra time for other things.
Patents on non-CFC albuterol inhalers started expiring in 2009.
More patents will expire over the next few years and non-CFC generics will show up within the next 5 years.
Until those patents run out, it won't be over the counter and it won't be generic.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
Right or wrong, you have that backwards.
An expense that someone suffers due to a physical infirmity is not "charging people." Someone provides them with a service or product that they need and expects to be compensated in return.
What you are suggesting is charging Paul to pay for Peter rather than having Peter pay his own way. There may be some value in subsidizing keeping people alive, but that's a political conversation I sure as hell don't want to have on /.
This contradicts my instincts about the chemistry of our atmosphere. Just who performed these "laboratory studies"? If they were funded by government money in any way then they are probably part of the vast left-wing conspiracy to debunk my gut feelings.
Alright, comrades, the jig's up. BitHive caught us red (of course) handed. Now everyone will know about our scheme:
(1) Threaten everyone with gut debunking.
(2) They start hollerin' for single payer.
(3) ???
(4) Redistribute wealth!
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
One wonders if the price on the newer inhalers will come down, since there will be volume efficiencies when more of them are made.
Short answer is "No." CFC inhalers for prescription inhalers has been banned in the US for several years, the price has not gone down. There is no reason to expect over the counter inhalers will go down. When the prescription ones dropped CFC as the propellant, they received new patents now they are protected. This was nothing more than the pharmaceutical companies getting the OTC banned from competing with them.
The high price of the albuterol inhalers in the USA is due to the control of manufacturing of the propellant by the patent holder. Albuterol inhalers sold in India and made in Australia by well-known brands cost about $2 becasue they don't care about the CFC in the propellant.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
If the US had a decent health care system this would NOT be an issue.
Aren't you happy that you are able to sacrifice your health, though, for the good of the planet?
Comrade Captain Planet demands we much all offer our lives for him.
We're getting deep into ecological debt as it is. Do you really want us to live as a bunch of locusts until the planet is bare and we all die?
Seems pretty self correcting to me.
Locusts exist and do what they do, and after the big swarm dies off the planet is actually better off in terms of biomass and biodiversity.
New (or regrown) plants take the place of the eaten plants, while the biomass the locusts ate is then eaten by predators (who are in turn eaten by larger predators, etc.). The plant biomass that was eaten by the locusts effectively moves up the food chain, and new plant biomass is created as plants grow back in the now-empty space.
As long as more biomass moves up the food chain than down (due to starvation due to the lack of crops), then complex life forms receive a net benefit, and thus life gets an extra boost in its fight against entropy.
You might want to read that article closer. The ozone hole is closing, even with the effects of CFCs from inhalers still acting on it (plus all the other CFCs still floating around from other sources). Therefore, inhaler based CFCs seem not to be a serious issue.
"None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license." --John Milton
And the sunsets! Those gorgeous, orange (*cough*) sunsets (*wheeze*).
The suggestion that everyone should be forced to cooperate in the national Prisoner's Dilemma game is controversial, but not that controversial. You are individually better off if you defect, but everyone is better off if everyone cooperates.
sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f(q{sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f});
Well last I hear the ozone layer was clearing up, and considering the number of countries that have yet to ban CFC's, I think it is more important that people get the opportunity to breathe.
FDA should fast track the other inhalers, and the EPA should hold off on the ban until they are available. People WILL die without access to inhalers, Another year of cfc's is a drop in the bucket, and there is no evidence that it will kill anyone. Hell they have been warning us about the ozone layer for at least 15 years now, and no one has died yet, another year to get a medicine to the people wont make a difference in the long run.
NOTE: I am against doing things that destroy our habitat, but this seems like a situation that could be better handled. I consider myself a nature lover, and dont want to see the earth get destroyed by our actions. This will do relatively little to the environment and will prevent people from dying. Time to weigh the costs here.
You are entitled to your own opinions, not your own facts.
For gods sake stop screaming "EPA are idiots" and check for once that epinephrine inhalers are not recommended in general due to the side effects of the DRUG. This is why FDA refused the CFC exception for epinephrine. So yes, other inhalers might be more expensive but a) you get rid of ozone destroying CFC as most countries have meanwhile completely abandoned and results show slowly in the layer. And b) people stop using over-the-counter self medication that is not recommended by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute’s Expert Panel Report 3 asthma guidelines.
"Although over-the-counter epinephrine inhalers have been on the market for decades and can relieve acute asthma symptoms, these medications are known to have serious side effects when used in higher doses. In addition, they are not recommended by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute’s Expert Panel Report 3 asthma guidelines. As a result, last year the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) denied the request for “essential-use” designation for these chlorofluorocarbon (CFC)-propelled devices. The ruling means that epinephrine inhalers will become unavailable in the United States after Dec. 31, 2011.
According to several lung experts, the coming change provides the perfect opportunity for respiratory patients to talk with their doctor or respiratory therapist about epinephrine’s downsides and learn why it is a good thing these inhalers are being removed from the market."
http://www.yourlunghealth.org/healthy_living/aah/04.09/articles/inhalers/
Except that the summary is overtly lying - the albuterol inhalers cost as little as $30. It's even in the linked article.
$30 plus a $100 per year to have your Dr. write you a prescription.
Yes, but you can't buy albuterol without a prescription. Most people who use Primatene as their primary asthma rescue drug are poor and lack insurance. The need to take time off from work and get an official prescription can be a substantial barrier. The cost of the albuterol isn't $30... it's $30, plus the cost of the doctor visit, plus the lost wages from taking part or all of the day off from work.
As a general rule, you shouldn't feed the trolls. :) The GP was clearly trolling, IMO, because he was spewing an obvious right-wing shill statement about paying his own way... one he'll happily keep spewing as long as his largest medical expense is a $50 prescription, but as soon as he has to pay out of pocket for a $100,000 operation, he'll start nattering about insurance and paying his own way... completely forgetting that insurance is an industry built on spreading that kind of cost around so that every pays a small portion of it, rather than making the individual pay the whole cost. It boggles the mind, but people who fall into that category also don't seem to understand that limiting tort and having a socialized health care system like most of the civilized world has done actually reduces costs for everybody involved.
Anyone that has asthma will tell you that things dramatically changed for them in 2010 when their old albuterol (fast-acting, for emergencies) inhalers were reformulated to not include CFCs (dubbed HFA, aka Hydrofluoroalkane) . Most HFA-using patients state that they cannot "feel" the aerosol or that it doesn't work nearly as well as the CFC-based ones.*
There are a number of significant differences between CFC and HFC inhalers. One is that most drugs are less soluble in HFCs than CFCs; newer HFCs inhalers are generally formulated using a suspension of solid particles in propellant (this may have something to do with the clogging & self-depletion problems reported with HFC inhalers). There might also be issues given the density differences between CFCs and HFCs -- I would expect the heavier gas would do a better job carrying the medication deeper down into the lungs.
/.'ers are being characteristically reactionist. I use the new inhalers, and have done so for several years now. This story should be modded anti-government flamebait.
Furthermore, epinephrine inhalers are less effective than salabuterol inhalers, with more side effects (epinephrine can be very unpleasant). That's the real reason they're going away-- reformulating them for a new propellant is not worth the cost.
Mod parent up!
This shouldn't have been news. It's been know since 2008 that the gig was up by 1/1/2012. Yes, it's "only" 70 tons of CFCs a year. But, there are already enough hassles with attempted exemptions and dealing with CFCs that are a by-product of other compounds.
CFCs seemed like a great product. Non-toxic, very useful. Unfortunately, once a cost was discovered for using it, we could either continue externalizing the cost (hello melanoma, good bye rice production), or internalize it (product substitution, or elimination).
Luke, help me take this mask off
Quantitative proof or GTFO.
Well, I'll take a shot at it. Please excuse me if I miss a decimal point somewhere, corrections are welcome.
About 14g of material in a Primatene Mist Inhaler. Non-propellant mass is ascorbic acid, dehydrated alcohol (34%), hydrochloric acid, nitric acid, purified water (actual mass of drug is negligible). Don't know the breakdown, but guesstimating about 4g of CFC-12 and CFC-114 propellant per inhaler, since alcohol is ~1/3 mass, and ascorbic acid is listed before the alcohol (ingredients should be listed in order of descending weight, so at least 1/3 ascorbic acid).
In one of the recent news interviews about this, FDA spokesman estimated 1-2 million Primatene Mist users out there. Let's say 12 vials per year * 2mil users (I don't really know how many vials an asthmatic goes through), and call it 20 million vials. That would be 24,000kg of CFCs per year, or 24 metric tons.
For reference, reported peak production of CFC-12 was reached in 1988, at 421,002 metric tons (1000kg in a metric ton), and 8,938 metric tons in 2004 (last reported year). So total usage is not tiny, but still a small fraction of the overall CFC usage.
Yeah, Michigan and Ohio have a pretty dismal employment situation, but blaming that on environmental regulation is a bit of a stretch. While environmental regulation does make products more expensive to produce, so do a number of other factors that contributed to the decline in manufacturing jobs.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Okay, so put that in the summary instead of lying about the costs of the drug.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
All very good points, but the summary didn't use them - instead it deliberately just used the higher number in the article.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Should just ban all lifesaving devices as humans have been proven to be bad for the environment
Are you familiar with the term, "boundary condition"?
Asthma inhalers are only one example of a much larger class of products that contain these ozone-destroying propellants. Is CFC-12 the only ingredient that can be used effectively for inhalers? Do inhalers have to use ANY propellant? Or do they include the propellant so that they can minimize the amount of the active ingredient so that the consumer needs to buy lots and lots of inhalers?
Do you remember how many different ways the EPA attacked the pollution in the Great Lakes a few decades ago? They approached it from hundreds of different directions, and for each one you could have said, "Why are they going after this one itty-bitty thing?".
But here we are in 2011, and the Great Lakes are no longer the open-air toilet that they were in the 1970s. You can catch beautiful salmon and lake trout off the coast of Gary, Indiana for chrissake. Cleveland doesn't smell like a decaying corpse any more.
The same arguments were made in the 1980s and 1990s about the EPA. Yesterday, one of the geniuses in the Republican debate, some guy who make his money selling cardboard pizzas, said, "The first thing I'd do after being elected is close down the EPA".
So it's finally happened. The Tea Party has driven the GOP so far over the cliff that they're coming out in favor of...pollution, people dying from lack of health care and executing innocent people. I hear they're planning a big campaign in favor of mercury in baby food and lead paint in pre-schools. They boo a question from a soldier serving in Iraq because he's gay. They consider police, firemen, schoolteachers and paramedics "bottom-feeders", "parasites" and "scum". Think about that for just a second. For them, domestic enemy number one is police, firemen, schoolteachers and paramedics. They have a plan for recruiting better teachers for our schools. And do you know what that plan is? They plan to recruit better teachers by taking away their collective bargaining rights, paying them less, reducing their benefits and making class sizes bigger. I'm not joking. That's what the most "moderate" of the GOP candidates said last night. Mitt Romney's plan to recruit higher-quality teachers is to make it a lot more unpleasant and less lucrative to be a schoolteacher. Guy's a friggin' genius. The number one thing the GOP likes about him is that he's a "job creator" except during his tenure at Bain & Company he laid off a lot more people than he hired and as governor of Massachusetts they were number 46 out of 50 in new jobs. And that other whiz kid, the down's syndrome-looking one from Texas (no, not Ron Paul, the other goof) who brags about his "Texas Miracle" which apparently was he somehow turned all the decent middle-class jobs into minimum wage jobs, and he did so by spending $25billion in federal tax money from the Obama stimulus.
I'm sorry I got off on this rant. So back to my original point, fuck you and your Primatene Mist. Did you ever think that maybe if the air quality in the urban US wasn't so polluted that maybe we wouldn't have the current epidemic of asthma among children in the inner city? The EPA has been under attack by knuckleheads like you for a couple of decades now. They need to be made a lot stronger and more effective, not have their budget slashed every time the Republicans take over one or more branch of government.
I'm sorry for ranting, but my fuck you still stands.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Yes, still closing after 30 years of prohibiting the chemicals that tore it open. IOW, taking too long. Eliminating the other sources, like inhalers, accelerates the closing.
We don't suffer from the sign of the change in the hole's size. We suffer from its existence. The sooner it closes, the better.
The EPA should go even further, and eliminate more of the particles that cause asthma sufferers to suffer. By eliminating coal and other burnt fuels.
--
make install -not war
First of all, you can have a single-use inhaler. This is after all a product for emergency use.
Second of all, you can go with a refillable device. Air passes through a regulator. It works for SCUBA. This is heavier of course, with greater up-front cost, but it saves you money if you use the device frequently. Refills are just jars of dry powder or a liquid, along with air from a compressor.
I have Asthma and when they started to reformulate the inhailers to use not CFCs I found out they seem to not work nearly as well. They also taste just horrible and at times the Asthma seems to get worse. I really miss my old style Maxair autoinhailer. :-( It is extremely frustrating to me. After researching it a bit I found out that most common replacement appears to be R134a and from what the Internet shows is that some people have a pretty big sensitivity to it. Of course with the Internet you should take things with a grain of salt but R12 (the old type they used) was one very safe compound that seemed to work extremely well to deliver the medicine but apparently R134a is quite different and that is why the medicine had to be changed so much.
Extremely annoying that they did this. It should have been left alone.
Do inhalers have to use ANY propellant? Or do they include the propellant so that they can minimize the amount of the active ingredient so that the consumer needs to buy lots and lots of inhalers?
No you asshole. They use propellant because when you're having a fucking asthma attack, you can't generate enough negative pressure with your lungs to properly atomize the medicine!
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
About your last point, really consider this: Which is going to help more asthmatic children in urban areas: forcing their parents to buy them more expensive medication, or removing the pollutants from the inhalers? And also thank you for pointing out individuals in the GOP's lackluster lineup, rather than blatant remarks about all conservatives.
I've been using Albuterol since it was brand-name Proventil, then it got cheap when the generic Albuterol became available. Now it's the *same* drug (presumably - IANAD), but new propellant(?), and no longer generic(!), and, odd, no longer cheap(!$). Hmmm. One could wonder who's really running this ship? (yes, sarcasm)
If you're gonna be dumb, you gotta be tough.
My Dad died of COPD in 2005, and we knew about the upcoming CFC ban years before that. I can only assume that the makers of Primatine Mist had a replacement ready to go 10 years ago...the only reason to pretend they don't is to get a bump from customers hoarding their product before the 'drop dead' date.
I am not a crackpot.
> I now order them from mexico, same old good stuff that works.
You should get them from China, it's cheaper and comes fortified with Melamine additives for extra protein.
Actually, engineers resolved the notion of the user powered pump quite some time ago. It's really cool, you just squeeze or depress the mechanism and out comes the product. For the lazy though they've come up with the ingenious notion of replacing the aerosol with carbon dioxide or nitrous oxide when used in human consumables. Either way there are alternatives to CFCs and most cost no different or even less than CFC propellant. The problem isn't the propellant it's the drug manufacturers that feel like charging more.
Two of my imaginary friends reproduced once
So while we get all paranoid about inhalers containing CFCs (Which, worked better than the alternatives IMO, even though the documentation says otherwise....) China, india, and other such countries are pumping untold amounts of toxins in the air which are probally even more hazardous than the relative small number of inhalers produced and sold worldwide.... Just sayin...
Assuming your numbers and the scaled up to the world population we'd have 24 tons * (7/.3) equals 560 tons. And I don't accept the argument that people in most countries may not use them. We all have to behave in a sustainable way. To me that means that we have to ask: What if every person on our planet behaved the way I did?
When 1person suffers from a delusion,it is called insanity.When many people suffer from a delusion,it is called religion
Athsmatic here in Australia - and AGREED! They did this to us nearly 10 years ago and the difference is noticable.
A friend brought one back from Greece still with CFC in it 5 years ago and I still remember getting a hit from it, it's SO MUCH BETTER. The non CFC variant is simply not as good - no it's not a placebo, it's been 10 damn years.
You haven't seen the propellant-free finger-triggered atomizers? They've been around for oh, 150 years. Considering the particulate that's being delivered to the back of the throat, and the new micro-encapsulating manufacturing processes, I doubt that the medicine needs to be applied with any force whatever. The same medicine can (and often is) used in liquid form or even with a cutaneous application.
And there have been safe CFC-free propellants available for many years for asthmatics without fingers. But inhalers are probably the worst treatment for asthma around. As long as they're profitable, though, they will be widely used.
The inhaler bronchodilators are pushed because they are very expensive and require constant prescription refilling or over-the-counter buying. They are not even very effective. If they're used more than a few times there's a good chance they're making the asthma worse. There are plenty of better medications available. None of the drug approaches to asthma actually cure it, though. There are however lifestyle changes that have been shown to effectively cure it (eliminating the environmental triggers in the home, for example - see Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America), and even relaxation techniques that are a lot more effective than inhalers once learned. But since those can't be patented, well, you know...
You are welcome on my lawn.
You shouldn't talk to people like that, Lord Kano. Your mom and I raised you better than that.
You are welcome on my lawn.
The amount of CFCs pumped into the atmosphere by asthma inhalers is negligible at best.
You mean by millions upon millions of people with asthma, using them weekly or daily? Let's remember that we banned the use of ozone-depleting CFCs from sealed refrigeration systems back in the early 90's and mandated their recovery, twenty years ago. This is a use where the CFCs are being purposefully released.
The inhaler industry has seen the writing on the wall for the last twenty years, apparently been given a free pass on the Montreal Protocol which banned CFCs, and apparently decided profit was more important than the environment all those years. The EPA is finally bitch-slapping them into doing something.
Further, CFCs have enormous impact on both the ozone AND they act as a 'super' greenhouse gas, much worse than CO2.
Do you seriously not see the irony in inhaler companies using ozone-depleting greenhouse gasses in their products? It's almost as bad as GE (PCB polluter extraordinaire) selling water purification systems.
Please help metamoderate.
Im so pissed because ive USED the non-cfc ones and they don't work! -- I have problems if the climate is really dry and I wound up buying backstock a few years ago, but its almost gone. :( --- I'm a bit freaked out and considering international alternatives at least while i can. Such assholes. The EPA shouldnt be involved in CDC matters.
Like we know.
Obama baby is a real additict.
He knows what he whants.
Get in betweenist em and 'ese drug ... watch out for y'r 'ead.
Basically, Obama boy likes 'es cocaine with a shot of Jack and a CFC "asma 'hailer" blow'n up he ars. He get a big buz that way.
Then 'e go's off to 'ese basement to do some sexual things w'i'ese kidnapped 'cldredes and eatz 'lese bod'es when 'ese finished'se.
What's a nasty niggers'se.
Spot on... you've echoed my sentiments exactly. Ventolin _has_ changed over the last few years, and it's not a subjective thing. Not long ago I found an old Ventolin inhaler I had stashed away and forgotten about. I used it the next time I needed relief. It was literally a breath of fresh ...errr Ventolin. It was a decent puff and immediately felt relieved. I agree the new inhalers don't last very long at all. I usually by three or more in one go, and get a stern 'talking to' from the pharmacist even after I explain I'll keep one in the car, one in my work bag, etc. etc.. I attribute that to the gas propellent not having the same something or other - density? mass? I don't know but it certainly does not work lie it used to. I hope I'm not in this situation but I do feel the change will cause fatalities sooner or later.
I don't know whats up in America, but in Australia I can get a 200 dose CFC free salbutamol (albuterol for you crazy americans) inhaler for $7 (completely unsubsidized by health care). For reference that is less than most burger meals from mcdonalds. As to the efficacy, I've never had any problems with it at all, and most literature I've seen points to either no difference or better distribution of drug with HFA inhalers.
I take it you've never used any of the environmentally friendly inhalers before, because they are fucking terrible. I've been using them for a few years (The EPA went apeshit insane on albuterol a few years ago, and I had no idea that there was an OTC alternative), and they get routinely clogged up by both dust and even dried medicine, and I can ensure you that this was never a problem with the old inhalers. Thankfully, my asthma is really mild and I rarely need these, but if I ever have a real emergency, I'm fucked.
Anybody with asthma that hits them to a significant amount (i.e. even a tiny fraction of what's needed to die) doesn't use an OTC inhaler unless they're suicidally dumb. We use prescriptions like Albuterol, which has been available in HFA (i.e. not CFC) form for years now, and anyone with insurance is on a preventative medication.
One prescription inhaler holds a couple hundred treatments, which will last a moderate asthmatic a year or two, if not longer; according to TFA, they cost ~$60. (I wonder if that's the cost with a particular insurance/HMO, or uninsured?) Anybody that can't afford $60 every couple of years would almost certainly qualify for Medicaid and there are various programs out there to help Americans with serious conditions that are stuck between "too poor" and "not poor enough".
If the EPA, eliminates these, they also will potentially end of killing some of the lower end asthmatics who can't afford the more expensive spray. Not only does this mean that there are fewer asthmatics who can breed. It also means that all the carbon emissions from the asthmatics who do die will be eliminated. Anything and everything to eliminate green house gases from the atmosphere I say.
After all if we keep polluting our air with C02, pretty soon it is going to be hot enough for the dinosaurs to come back and eat people. What would you rather have a few dead asthmatics, or the entire human race wiped out by dinosaurs. Thanks again EPA. Good catch!
We have the highest rate of skin cancer in the world because millions of foreigners created a hole in the ozone layer above us.
I just thought I'd say thanks.
I dream of a nation where a man is not judged by his skin color but by an number assigned by a credit rating agency.
I have used those along with several forms of liquid and several forms in pill. One day I mentioned to my specialist that the compressed air version of my medication worked better than the same chemical in powered form (also inhaled) and he replied that I was correct: the most effective way to get something into the blood stream is through the lungs and the most effective way to do that with with the compressed air versions.
Any doctor pushing a bronchodilator for anything other than the rare emergency use is simply incompetent . Lifestyle changes don't work in all cases although they do help depending on what the triggers are and I have found that relaxation techniques are a great way to avoid a panic attack and passing out but aren't entirely effective. In my case the magic treatment that finally got me off daily Ventolin, along with making sure my house is clean and avoiding smokers (even when they aren't smoking), was Alvesco and that is compressed air inhaled.
As an aside, I really worry about the US when I find out that an Albuterol inhaler there costs $20. My CFC free version of Ventolin cost me $12 in Canada and in Spain I pay less than 10 Euros. The Americans are getting ripped off.
For the rest of the world non CFC inhalers seem to be cheaper than what you Americans pay for the CFC version.
The worst thing Nixon did to the American people was promote HMOs.
Instead of an organisation dedicated to maintaining your health, you got organisations dedicated to trying to deny you healthcare to make as much profit as possible.
We'd probably be fucked as you bitch about other people having to sacrifice every tiny details while doing jack shit yourself.
24 metric tons divided by 8,938 metric tons turns out to be less than 0.003 (3ppm).
I would definitily call that way lower than "tiny" and at best (overstated) "a small fraction".
... with your provided data ofcourse.
Buy it from the UK. That $60 inhaler is $3 here.
If you have health insurance, you really ought to look into some of the less damaging treatments for asthma. Inhalers are sort of old school.
You are welcome on my lawn.
as some one with asthma, the new inhalers suck sorry... there is a big differance. and to the person that mentioned "primatine mist". The only time I ever use primatine is if for some reason I'm in a pinch and the only way to get releaf is to go to a wallgreens which sells primatine... primatine sucks even more... While I'm a big fan of eliminating sources of CFC's... when it comes to a health issue like this there needs to be a viable replacement first.
Getting ripped off is one of our most beloved and enduring institutions. That, and war-for-profit.
You are welcome on my lawn.
No, old-school is the air compressor with the mask which would have the medications vaporiser while you inhaled them over a 15 minute period.
I take it you've never used any of the environmentally friendly inhalers before, because they are fucking terrible. I've been using them for a few years (The EPA went apeshit insane on albuterol a few years ago, and I had no idea that there was an OTC alternative), and they get routinely clogged up by both dust and even dried medicine, and I can ensure you that this was never a problem with the old inhalers. Thankfully, my asthma is really mild and I rarely need these, but if I ever have a real emergency, I'm fucked.
Used both, yes, the new propellant is not as good as the old stuff, no it is not nearly as bad as you make it out to be.
I want my inhaler propellants to be helium, that would be awesome! Of course, we're not really making any new helium, so that might be a problem.
When you sympathize with stupidity, you start thinking like an idiot.
The point is that we all had dice rolled for us when we were conceived. Some didn't make it through the first few cell divisions and others will make it to old age without significant health problems. A lot of that is just blind luck. We don't get to choose who our parents are or what genetic consequences might result. We don't get to choose whether or not our parents smoke or engaged in unwise activities while being a baby.
And yes, it is charging people for having an infirmity. I didn't personally choose to spend those days in the ER as a kid, they were the result of something beyond my control. Folks lucky enough not to have to deal with that should show some appreciation and recognize that it was primarily luck, not any sort of action. The next time the die is cast, they might not be so lucky.
So many people blaming the EPA regulation for reducing the effectiveness of an asthma medication, yet no one asking why they have asthma in the first place, and whether tougher EPA air standards might help.
Asthma is massively more common today, particularly in children, than only a few decades ago. Skin cancer is not, in large part thanks to a decades old agreement to phase out CFCs -- one of the great international regulatory successes of our time. Let's keep it that way, and also work on cleaner air for the asthma patients.
The summary is killing me. Albuterol isn't epinephrine. It's Ventolin. It only works on respiratory smooth muscles. Epinephrine works on the heart and blood vessels too.
You left out calling anyone a commie that dares to suggest the government should take money from ME to pay for OTHER PEOPLE. (Not that I feel that way, but apparently huge numbers of Americans do.)
For those of us who don't know, can you elaborate on what some of these less damaging treatments are?
Or you could get them for $9 at Walmart.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
From reading the Wikipedia article on lead poisoning, I assume you meant micrograms.
Slashdot filters out the mu character, thus automatically converting abbreviations from micrograms to grams.
A couple I'm familiar with are the long-acting beta agonists such as Foradil and the leukotriene modifiers like Atrovent.
The most effective long-term treatment is simply cleaning out your home's heating ducts and getting rid of the triggers. With bio-feedback and relaxation exercise the acute symptoms for which many people rely on inhalers are reduced and eliminated.
Most asthma is triggered at home. There's good evidence that building materials are a big culprit. It would be easier to regulate the unhealthy chemicals used in building materials than treating the millions with asthma. The incidence of asthma in children is increasing at a very fast pace.
You are welcome on my lawn.
In the UK, inhalers are a prescription drug that outlawed CFCs an age ago. They now use HFA 134a. They cost £7.40 - the same as any prescription drug bought under the NHS.
A decalitre is abbreviated as "dl". It's a horrible halfway size for those of us more used to m,k,M,G etc but that's what it is.
The other bit that hurts my head is rounding a pint down about 100ml and then pretending that from the very rough calculation the full three digits matter. Lots of people do it but kids today need to learn that is they put rough figures into their calculators they can't pretend to get a precise value at the end no matter what it says on the screen (it's normally how I spot the difference between salesmen and engineers or scientists).
How do you know what I do or don't do? Just because you're a selfish son of a bitch does not mean that I am, too! I don't drive because I think it is bad for the environment. 30 years ago when I wanted to have 3 kids I decided to have none after reading a UN sponsored report about overpopulation. I recycle, installed all kinds of water- and energy-saving devices in my home and have been a founding member of a political party promoting environmental awareness and societal changes towards a more sustainable behaviour in my country. I know many Americans don't believe in planning for the future unless it's their own immediate personal one but that does not mean that all other people feel the same way. (My apologies for the non-anthropogenic global warming denying non Tea Party morons in the US, I know there some of you out there!) My entire adult life I have tried to live in a way that when I look back on my life I don't have to feel guilty for how I lived. Ultimately I feel I would have no right to criticise anybody else unless I try to set a better example. Yes, there is much more I could do, but, I would say I am way ahead of the curve on this one!
When 1person suffers from a delusion,it is called insanity.When many people suffer from a delusion,it is called religion
Salbutamol ( albuterol) based CFC-free inhalers cost £2 (so what? $3) to manufacture. IF people are willing to $60 for a better asthma treatment than adrenaline-based (epinephrine) inhalers (a type which was phased out in the UK due to other complications) well more fool them.
Maybe if america didn't have such a retarded, big drug companies pushing brandnames on drugs making generics hard to penetrate the market then MAYBE you would also get cheaper,better alternatives. Salbutamol-based inhalers didn't use to be cheap, it wasn't until the patent expired over 10years ago that the price started to be driven down via generics.
Don't blame successive presidents of Regen (CFC drive) , Bush Jr (actual law on CFC inhalers) or Obama (bringing into law) for bringing in something to drop CFC's (a proven greenhouse gas) blame them, the gov'n and big drug companies for ripping of the american people
The problem doesn't have anything to do with the FDA requiring the old drugs with new propellants to be retested as new drugs?
Actually no. The drug manufacturer may file a 505(b)(2) application with the FDA instead of a traditional new drug application allowing them to forgo pre-clinical and clinical trials in most cases. Instead the manufacturer is able to cite facts established from the drug upon which this new version is based. Further, in so doing, the manufacturer can receive a 3 to 5 year market exclusivity on the product depending upon the extent of the change.
Two of my imaginary friends reproduced once
That would require them to actually be interested in making a cheap OTC available, rather than a more-profitable prescription-only drug.