Prescription Drugs 'R Us
I'm carrying a number of bills to make sure we get the best prices for prescription drugs, both as individual consumers and as state purchasers on a mass scale. My bill (Senate Bill 40) to enable doctors to re-dispense prescriptions unused by one patient to other needy ones has passed the Senate. Currently these drugs are disposed of or flushed down the toilet even though some of them cost megabucks. Dr. Barbara McAneny, a cancer doctor and constituent, is the brain child behind this measure. She's tired of throwing away expensive chemotherapy drugs (try $2,500 a pill) when some of her patients need 'em badly. Please contact members of the House Consumer and Public Affairs Committee if you support the bill.
My bill to require pharmaceutical and medical suppliers to report gifts they give to doctors is due to hit the floor on Monday. This is a transparency bill that is aimed at shining a little light on the activities of the thousands of marketing representatives who swarm the medical offices with free lunches, offers of trips, cruises, honoraria and other goodies. I believe that evidence of the drug's effectiveness should be more important than this kind of advertising in influencing prescribing practices. So do doctors themselves. This bill has the support of the Attorney General, the New Mexico Medical Society and UNM medical students who last year influenced UNM Health Sciences to BAN these freebies altogether. Look to how this bill fares as a sign of how other, broader transparency measures (i.e. open legislative conference committees, disclosure of contributions made by contractors to state officials, etc.) will do.
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A prescription drug is a licensed medicine that is regulated by legislation to require a prescription before it can be obtained. The term is used to distinguish it from over-the-counter drugs which can be obtained without a prescription. Different jurisdictions have different definitions of what constitutes a prescription drug.
-jomie-
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