Asthmatics Beware

I always disapproved of Primatene for cornering the market. Maybe a competitor wouldn't clog up so easily. An obvious improvement would be to sell it without the opaque coating, which prevents your seeing how much medicine you have left. Of course it's scary, the prospect it might get clogged, or ---surprise!--- in the middle of the night you discover it's empty.

But you thank heavens it exists. You can run down to the 24 hour grocery store and buy a new one for $18. I always know where I stand, as far as my supply goes. Or, I thought I knew where I stood until a month ago.

This story is from ABC News, dated January, 2006. That's more than a year ago.

"A U.S. Food and Drug Administration committee voted 11-7 today to recommend that certain over-the-counter asthma inhalers, such as Primatene Mist, be taken off the market over concerns that they contain chlorofluorocarbons that could harm the environment."

Yes, that little puff goes into your lungs, but you read correctly. It's a threat to the ozone layer.

And "certain " OTC inhalers? As far as I know, Primatene is the only OTC inhaler in the U.S.A.

The story continues with a unexpected twist:

"Chlorofluorocarbons have been associated with depleting Earth's ozone layer, which can in turn contribute to global warming and skin cancer. But another issue at hand, according to health experts, is that Primatene Mist may do patients more harm than good.

"The recommendation now means that the FDA will vote whether to keep over-the-counter inhalers on the market, said FDA spokesperson Laura Alvey."

Now in 2007, at Wyeth/Primatine site there is a mysterious statement.


Note the peculiar unwillingness to explain why the product is disappearing. It is "as a result of an interruption in supply from our third party manufacturer."

Today, this story from In-Pharma Technologist.com:

"US legislation to rid the market of CFC-based inhaler propellants will be good news for the environment, not such good news for consumers' pockets, according to a recent study published in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM).

With chlorofluorocarbon (CFC) based propellants currently used in albuterol inhalers (one of the most commonly prescribed medications in the country) to be banned after 2008, hydrofluoroalkane (HFA) alternatives are gradually being brought onto the market. "

This is why Primatene is disappearing, apparently. They have not come up with a new formula using the HFA propellant.

So I'm looking who to hate. The environmentalists, or the idealistic doctors who want to force all asthmatics back to specialists.

I've depended on this poison since I was eight years old, and since Primatene is apparently slow converting to an environmentally friendly inhaler, I've lost my emergency back-up for an asthma attack.

I have the new Albuterol (the price has doubled or tripled thanks to the new propellant) and will use the preventative Flovent, but Primatene has always been the ultimate, seemingly guaranteed lifesaver. It's raw, it's dangerous by today's new safety standards, but it's a remedy. Sometimes the only remedy.

Now it is gone, and no one is sure whether it is going to be illegal, or if it's going to be years before it returns, available over the counter.

I've never known life without my "puff" and hardly ever think about my asthma. (Yes I know that may be the problem some doctors are noting, and I should see a pulmonary specialist now and then, to report all is stable and ask "what's new?")

It's like your eyeglasses: you think about how in reality you're quite blind, and it's good to have a backup pair.

In certain ways, we're not fit to live, some of us. Only in modern times would this body have made it to age 45. Now I'm being messed with.

Nobody seems to know us anymore. Where is Dr. Caudell? I imagine he was 70 when I was eight. I remember when he gave it to me he called it a "puff". On a return visit I called it a puff, naturally, and he laughed as if he'd never heard that.

"Oh, like Puff The Magic Dragon?" he asked.

Primatene asthma inhaler