A New Look, Feel, & Taste for Your Rescue Inhaler On the Way
But CFCs deplete the ozone layer in the environment, so the FDA told drugmakers to find a new way to get inhalers to work using a different propellant, called hydrofluroalkane, or HFA for short. HFA is not harmful to the ozone layer.
The transition from CFCs to HFA must be made by Dec. 31, 2008, and some of the new inhalers are already on the market. Unfortunately, they'll require a new prescription from your doctor, and they'll probably cost you more, mainly because there are no generic versions of the new inhalers available yet. So, you can expect to pay twice as much when you pick up your new inhaler at the pharmacy, if you don't have health insurance that covers your asthma medicines.
Also, the new HFA inhalers work slightly differently. They tend to have a less forceful, broader spray. The medicine may also taste a little different and won't feel as cold in your airways as the spray from CFC inhalers does.
Comments
That’s fine. I’m all in favour of these drugs costing more because they are deadly dangerous and there is a cure that is completely free.
The government’s position on this is absurd! The tiny amount of CFC’s released from asthma inhalers is nothing compared to the amount released by the space shuttle with every launch, or the pollution created by automobiles, trucks, and factories. Eliminating CFC’s in the inhalers will have no appreciable impact.
Ihad one of these new inhalers and it was really difficult to get the solution into the lungs - also, it constantly CLOGGED up and I had to rinse it at least once a day! I returned it for the old kind.
I’m not thrilled with this new FDA policy either. I know we should all be concerned with the environment, but I don’t have health insurance, so affording the new non-generic inhalers isn’t going to be easy.
I switched to one called ProAir in the red cannister. I like it better than the cold version with CFC. You do nede to clean it once a week but i think it is worth it. I also found vouchers and coupons on there website to help with the cost.
Pro_Air inhalers don’t work for me.
They are useless–FDA needs to rethink
ban on propellants
the new inhalers CERTAINLY DO NOT WORK JUST FINE FOR COPD PATIENTS! I was hospitalized for a week after trying to switch from my regular albuteral. Now I am buying up all that I can of the old stuff and hoarding it!
For those who find the new HFA inhailers as garbage fill out a medwatch report with the FDA and also sign the petitition at http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/saveCFCinhalers/index.html.
The good news for the guy hoarding the cfc ones is that you can buy yourself some time, but that is all by this time next year all sales will stop and that assumes that there are any left to be had since they are not even manufactuing them anymore