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Thursday, April 15, 2010

CFC asthma inhalers not long for the world

Environmentalists can breath more easily with the CFC inhalers banished while some asthmatic and patients with COPD may have trouble adjusted to the new devices. See here for the latest in what inhalers are gone and which one are on the danger list.

Dr. Mintz has some helpful information about various of the products.See here.

I had written before about this issue.See here for some information of the problems that some patients have had changing over from the old HFA units to the newer ones and some links to comments questioning just how much of a problem the HFA units posed to the environment.

I believe this is the first time that the FDA has banned a medication or group of medications not because they are thought or proven to be harmful to those who use them but because they are thought to possibly harm folks who do not use it. ( Admittedly, the purported skin carcinogenic effect of increased sun rays from the purported decrease in ozone layer thickness from what must be a fairly small amount of CFCs would affect everyone- even asthmatics.) Since the task of determining harm to medication users has proven much harder that the FDA or anyone ever thought, it is admirable that the FDA will take on an even more difficult task, maybe they will do better than.We can hope.

Well, all that concern about the wisdom of eliminating the HFA propelled inhalers will just float away into the environment since it now is a done deal.The dogs bark and the caravan moves on.

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