FDA To Push For Drugs to Go OTC
By George Anderson
Usually it’s the pharmaceutical company that waits anxiously for approval from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to go over-the-counter (OTC) with a popular prescription medicine.
In the case of Allegra and Zyrtec, the situation is in reverse. The FDA wants to see the antihistamines made available for OTC use, but the manufacturers, Aventis Pharmaceuticals and Schering-Plough, do not.
The FDA has determined it needs to be “more proactive in recommending key potential switches.”
USA Today reports, “Besides empowering consumers, the budget states, switches could ‘provide an expedient way to significantly reduce consumer health care costs.’ “
Moderator’s Comment: Should the FDA have the authority
to force “drugs over-the-counter against makers’ wishes”?
[George
Anderson – Moderator]
Get out your sleds, we’re on a slippery slope.