Tag: prescription
Need an Adderall Prescription? Good Luck Getting It Over Telehealth.
“During the early stages of the COVID pandemic, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) temporarily lifted restrictions on doctors’ ability to write prescriptions for controlled drugs via telehealth. However, the agency is poised to bring telehealth under regulation again, bringing back strict limits on how and when doctors can prescribe certain drugs.
DEA officials announced the proposed regulations on Friday. The rules would render most controlled drugs ineligible for prescription via telemedicine appointment—severely restricting patients’ ability to obtain drugs without an in-person examination.”
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“However, the proposal contains several carve-outs. Under the policy, Schedule III-V controlled medications can still be prescribed via telemedicine. But patients would be limited to a 30-day supply, after which the patient would be required to have an in-person visit in order to get a refill. The same exception applies to buprenorphine, a drug used to treat opioid substance abuse. Further, under the proposed rule, patients can get indefinite prescriptions for controlled substances via telehealth but only if they are referred to a telehealth physician after receiving an in-person examination by another doctor.”
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“Officials justified the regulations by citing concerns over the risk of overprescription of controlled drugs. While administration officials did mention the benefits that telehealth services bring to rural Americans, there is little consideration of how these services are equally important to many who rely on controlled drugs—and the increased risk that desperate patients will turn to significantly more dangerous drugs to alleviate their symptoms.
“As a health policy lawyer w. chronic pain & ADHD, I cannot overstate how unnecessary & cruel this policy is given what visits look like in person v. Telehealth,” wrote health policy lawyer Madeline T. Morcelle on Twitter. “Or how deadly this could be for those who struggle to get to [appointments] due to disability or transport/geographic barriers.””
A New Study Finds No Correlation Between Opioid Prescriptions and Drug-Related Deaths
“Using data for 2010 through 2019, Aubry and Carr looked at the relationship between prescription opioid sales, measured by morphine milligram equivalents (MME) per capita, and four outcomes: total drug-related deaths, total opioid-related deaths, deaths tied specifically to prescription opioids, and “opioid use disorder” treatment admissions. “The analyses revealed that the direct correlations (i.e., significant, positive slopes) reported by the CDC based on data from 1999 to 2010 no longer exist,” they write. “The relationships between [the outcome variables] and Annual Prescription Opioid Sales (i.e., MME per Capita) are either non-existent or significantly negative/inverse.”
Those findings held true in “a strong majority of states,” Aubry and Carr report. From 2010 through 2019, “there was a statistically significant negative correlation (95% confidence level) between [opioid deaths] and Annual Prescription Opioid Sales in 38 states, with significant positive correlations occurring in only 2 states. Ten states did not exhibit significant (95% confidence level) relationships between overdose deaths and prescription opioid sales during the 2010–2019 time period.””
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“Yet the CDC is still pushing the narrative that more opioid prescribing means more opioid-related deaths.”
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“In light of what has happened since 2010, Aubry and Carr say, relying on those outdated numbers is highly misleading. They say the CDC’s advice “should be corrected/updated to state no direct correlation has existed” between prescription opioid sales and drug-related deaths or treatment admissions since 2010, and “individualized patient care and public health policy should be amended accordingly.””
Can pharmacists refuse to fill prescriptions for drugs that can be used in abortions?
“Methotrexate is a fairly common drug that treats a wide range of medical conditions. I take it to help control an autoimmune disorder. So do about 60 percent of rheumatoid arthritis patients. It is used to treat some cancers, such as non-Hodgkin lymphoma. It also has at least one other important medical use.
The drug is the most common pharmaceutical treatment for ectopic pregnancies, a life-threatening medical condition where a fertilized egg implants somewhere other than the uterus — typically a fallopian tube. If allowed to develop, this egg can eventually cause a rupture and massive internal bleeding. Methotrexate prevents embryonic cell growth, eventually terminating an ectopic pregnancy.
And so many patients who take methotrexate say they have become the latest victims of the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization — the decision overruling Roe v. Wade.
It’s unclear how widespread this phenomenon is, though the problem is serious enough that the Arthritis Foundation put out a statement warning that “arthritis patients who rely on methotrexate are reporting difficulty accessing it,” and that “at least one state — Texas — allows pharmacists to refuse to fill prescriptions for misoprostol and methotrexate, which together can be used for medical abortions.”
In some cases, pharmacists are reportedly reluctant to fill methotrexate prescriptions in states where abortion is illegal, and doctors are similarly reluctant to prescribe it. In other cases, pharmacists may refuse to fill valid methotrexate prescriptions because they personally object to abortion, even in states where the procedure remains legal.”
People Rarely Die After Using Opioids Prescribed for Them
“Although prescription pain medication is commonly blamed for the “opioid epidemic,” such drugs play a small and shrinking role in deaths involving this category of psychoactive substances.”