Legislation Bolsters Stop-Sale System & Reduces Annual Purchase Limits

JEFFERSON CITY — State Reps. Stanley Cox, R-Sedalia, and Chris Carter, D-St. Louis, today introduced bipartisan legislation designed to significantly strengthen Missouri’s anti-meth laws. The STOP METH legislation (HB 1328) enacts tougher penalties for criminals in possession of pseudoephedrine (PSE), significantly reduces the monthly and annual purchase amount of cold medications that contain PSE, requires that anyone convicted of a drug related offense obtain a prescription for pseudoephedrine medicines, and enhances the proven stop-sale system already in effect in Missouri.

“Methamphetamine is a scourge on our communities and real-time, stop-sale technology is the best solution for reducing meth labs,” said Cox, chairman of the Missouri House Judiciary Committee.  “Our bipartisan anti-meth legislation creates tougher penalties for criminals and significantly restricts the amount of cold medications with PSE that can be purchased in a month and year.  Our solution will help stop the criminals while ensuring honest, law-abiding citizens can access the cold medications they need without a prescription.”

“I’m pleased to join with Representative Cox in introducing this tough anti-meth bill,” said Carter.  “Making popular cold medications prescription-only is not the answer.  Our legislation protects legal access for law-abiding Missourians, while cutting off access for the criminals with tougher penalties and restrictions to help law enforcement track them down and keep meth off our streets.”

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Does refilling a prescription need to be class warfare?

By KEVIN HORRIGAN | St. Louis Post-Dispatch 

When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child. When I got sick, my mom got me medicine at a local drugstore by handing a nice man a prescription and paying him a few bucks.

When I became a man, I put away childish things. When I got sick, I handed my prescription to a pharmacist’s assistant in a white coat at a chain drugstore. Usually my insurance paid most of the cost.

Now that I am a middle-aged man, I have resumed childish tantrums. These occur whenever I have to refill a prescription. Unless it’s something short-term like an antibiotic, I have to go online to order a 90-day supply. If there are no refills remaining, I must try to get in touch with the doctor.

Or maybe there’s a billing snafu, some holdup among me, my health insurer, my health insurer’s pharmacy benefits manger and my health insurer’s flexible spending account manager, which wants more documentation than a French passport inspector.

My theory: They deliberately make things hard to discourage you from using your benefits.

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IACP Foundation President, Shara Rudner, RPh, FIACP has announced that the organization has issued two new grants for pharmacy compounding research.  “These studies will help add valuable information to the scientific literature and the Foundation was pleased to see so many exceptional responses to our second RFP of 2011,” said Rudner.  “These projects are the direct result of contributions from IACP members to the Foundation’s agenda of advancing the science of compounding.”

A grant has been awarded to Grove Pharmacy in the amount of $15,860 for a research study to detail the process of performing beyond-use date (BUD) testing, as well as provide much needed BUD data on commonly prescribed Erectile Dysfunction (ED) sterile compounds under the guidance of Sarah Billings, Pharm.D., C.D.E., Director of Clinical Programs.  A detailed description of the process that Grove Pharmacy undertakes to obtain sterility results for six concentrations of sterile ED medications will be written up and provided to IACP members.

The Foundation also is providing a grant of $10,000 to the Pacific University School of Pharmacy for a research study of the solid-state stability of compounded levothyroxine formulations.  This project is a collaboration between the school’s pharmaceutical science faculty Deepa A. Rao, Ph.D. and clinical faculty member Jeff Fortner, Pharm.D.  A summary report, poster, and a manuscript will be completed by the end of February 2013.

Since 2005, IACP Foundation has awarded more than $125,000 in grants to academicians and practitioners.  The IACP Foundation Research division strongly believes research regarding pharmacy compounds is vital to strengthening the role of pharmacy in personalized medicine.

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House Bills the MPA is Following

HB 1075 – Pharmacy Inventory Requirement Bill – Sponsor:  Rep. David Sater 
Summary:  Prohibits a licensed pharmacy from being required to carry or maintain in inventory any specific prescription or nonprescription drug or device.
MPA Position:  Support

HB 1193 – Prescription Monitoring Program – Sponsor:  Rep. Keith Frederick
Summary:  Establishes the Prescription Drug Monitoring Program Act to monitor the prescribing and dispensing of controlled substances
MPA Position:  Support

HB 1328 – Pseudoephedrine Products – Sponsor:  Rep. Stanley Cox
Summary:   Changes the laws regarding the sale and possession of controlled substances
MPA Position:  Support

HB 1372 – Prescription Monitoring Program – Sponsor:  Rep. Caleb Jones
Summary:  Changes the laws regarding the dispensing of controlled substances and establishes the Prescription Drug Monitoring Program Act
MPA Position:  Support

HB 1450 – Pharmacy Benefit Managers – Sponsor:  Rep. Mike Bernskoetter
Summary:  Changes the laws regarding the electronic transmission of prescriptions and pharmacy benefit managers
MPA Position:  Support 

HB 1563 – Legend Drugs – Sponsor:  Rep. David Sater
Summary:  Allows a pharmacy to sell, purchase, or trade legend drugs to other pharmacies under certain conditions
MPA Position:  Support

HB 1581 – Pharmacy Benefit Managers, Mail Order – Sponsor:  Rep. Steve Hodges
Summary:  Requires all health carriers and health benefit plans providing prescription drug coverage to allow insureds to fill mail order prescriptions at either participating mail order pharmacies or retail
MPA Position:  Support

If you have any questions about the legislation and where any of these bills are in the process, please direct them to Ron Fitzwater via email to ron@morx.com.  Also, if you’re interested in being involved in the MPA’s Legislative Committee Legislative conference calls, let Robyn Silvey know by sending her an email, robyn@morx.com (You have to be an active MPA member to participate in these calls).

Vaccines aren’t just for kids. Here’s why grown-ups need them, too.

Think of vaccines and you might envision teary-eyed kids at the doctor’s office or flu clinic getting a cartoon character bandage on their arm after getting a shot. But there are plenty of reasons adults should get vaccines too.

The vaccines you need as an adult depend on everything from your age and lifestyle to high-risk medical conditions, travel plans, and which shots you’ve had in the past.

“Vaccination is as important for adults as it is for children, and yet many adults are not optimally vaccinated,” says William Schaffner, MD, president of the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases and chairman of the department of preventive medicine at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine in Nashville.

Although there has been a slight increase in adult vaccination rates in recent years, Melinda Wharton, MD, MPH, deputy director of the CDC’s National Center for Immunization & Respiratory Diseases, says “there clearly is a gap in getting adults vaccinated.”

You can keep track of vaccines you may need as an adult with an online CDC scheduling tool or by taking a CDC quiz. You can also ask your doctor or your pharmacist because in many states they are licensed to give adult vaccines.

12 Reasons

The best reasons to get vaccinated are to protect yourself and to protect the people around you. The details:

1. You may no longer be protected. You may have received a vaccine as a child. But some vaccines require a booster if you want to remain protected. Protection may not be life-long for diseases like pertussis (whooping cough) or tetanus, which is usually given with the diphtheria toxoid. The CDC recommends a booster for the latter every 10 years after an initial childhood series.

2. Getting vaccines helps protect your kids — especially babies too young for vaccines. Whooping cough vaccines are recommended for people who have contact with young babies. The same is true for the flu vaccine. There’s no flu vaccine licensed for infants younger than 6 months old. “We call that creating a cocoon of protection around the baby,” Schaffner says.

3. Some vaccines are just for adults. The shingles vaccine is a good example. Shingles (also known as herpes zoster or zoster) is caused by a reactivation of the chickenpox virus. It can cause a severe and painful skin rash. The risk for shingles increases as a person ages. The vaccine is recommended for adults 60 and older.

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