Breathing Room
When I was a boy, I found out that I had asthma and was given all the great medicines that come with the disease. Inhalers, prescription nasal sprays, horse pills named Theo-Dur that had to be broken up into apple sauce, putting me off the desert for life, as well as a daily dose of Dimetapp liquid which made me hate anything flavored grape from bubble gum to soda pop.
As time went on, my asthma abated a bit before coming back in my twenties. This time though I had no health insurance nor a steady doctor to help me out, so I turned to the Primatene Mist inhaler, which was available over the counter in most retail pharmacies for a little over twenty dollars an inhaler. This cheap alternative to Albuterol based inhalers probably saved me hundreds of dollars and was available without having to resort to paying even hundreds more out of pocket for doctors visits.
Eventually in 2008 the product went through a period where it was hard to find, as all asthma inhalers were switching to HFA or hydrofluoroalkane to use as a propellent to get the medicine into patient’s lungs. The propellent all the inhalers contained before, CFC, or chlorofluorocarbons, was dangerous to our ozone layer and was being phased out per the Food and Drug Administration.
Although Primatene and the company that manufactured it, Armstrong Pharmaceuticals, had years to come up with a HFA based alternative, they never did and although the product was again easier to find in stores from 2009 till 2011 the product came with a label that might have proved ominous for those without proper health coverage. After December, 31st, 2011, no more Primatene Mist would be sold.
This message came along with another one on Armstrong Pharmaceuticals website, saying that they were in the final phases of making a HFA inhaler to replace the old outlawed one, but that in the interim people may want to find a new way to manage their breathing issues.
Now, this may seem like a fair and ample warning, but in the country’s current economic state telling someone they can’t breathe unless they can afford health care is about the same as telling a homeless person they have to find proper housing or weather the oncoming storm on their own.
Some medical professionals claim that the main active ingredient of Primatene Mist, ephedrine, is actually bad for your heart and your overall health. It can also be dangerous to overuse the inhaler, especially if a doctor has never actually diagnosed you with asthma. This is true, but it is also true that many people who once used the CFA based prescription inhalers say that they switched to Primatene Mist as it was the only thing that worked for them after the switch. To avoid issues all a consumer had to do was strictly follow the warnings on the product’s label.
Currently you can buy ephedrine in a tablet form, made under the Primatene and Bronkaid labels as well as generic alternatives, but personally these pills just do not seem to work as well as the mist, which went straight to your lungs. With the pills you have to wait till it goes through your bloodstream, making for an uncomfortable period of wheezing and chest tightness, if it clears the symptoms up at all.
The bottom line is that not only are countless people being hurt both financially and physically by Armstrong’s lack of a HFA over the counter inhaler for those that have no other options, but they seem to be ignorant of the estimated one to two million people who were affected by their lack of concern.
The FDA is to blame as well, pushing for a CFC ban in asthma inhalers when that made the least amount of sense. There are tons of horrible things polluting out world and destroying our children’s future on this planet that seem more deadly than an inhaler. It almost seems like a game to the pharmaceutical companies, who are making a ton of profit from this as HFA inhalers cost up to three times as much as Primatene did and the maintenance medicine you find doctor’s claiming works better then Primatene can cost as much as four hundred dollars per script.
I recently found myself in the ER of the hospital due to asthma for the first time in my life and probably will be again very soon as my Albuterol inhaler is running out. Although the doctors at the hospital were very kind and did their jobs well, I was told to go to a follow up visit for proper maintenance of my issues and for any refills, something impossible to do when the doctor charges over a hundred dollars for the initial visit. Add this to the cost of the scripts themselves and you can see how this might put a damper on your budget if you are less then wealthy.
Hopefully Armstrong Pharmaceutical’s is close to an HFA alternative (The FDA is making them go through the full procedure before approving the inhalers, including clinical trials) or someone can find a way for those without adequate health care to get help for these kinds of situations where the drug companies seem to care more about profit then helping people. Because they can no longer hold their breath…literally.
