This week the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) sent a powerful message to asthma sufferers, you can all go fuck yourselves and pay three times as much for the inhalers you need to breath. Oh and if you want to continue breathing you’re going to need a prescription:
Asthma patients who rely on over-the-counter inhalers will need to switch to prescription-only alternatives as part of the federal government’s latest attempt to protect the Earth’s atmosphere.
The Food and Drug Administration said Thursday patients who use the epinephrine inhalers to treat mild asthma will need to switch by Dec. 31 to other types that do not contain chlorofluorocarbons, an aerosol substance once found in a variety of spray products.
See those over-the-counter inhalers use chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) which have been linked with the hole in the ozone layer. Due to this over-the-counter inhalers are being banned because the ozone layer is far more important than your breathing… even though it has been recovering in spite of these Earth killing inhalers. But let us not get tied up in logic here, we need to enrich the pharmaceutical companies who charge three times as much for prescription inhalers than current over-the-counter inhalers:
But the switch to a greener inhaler will cost consumers more. Epinephrine inhalers are available via online retailers for around $20, whereas the alternatives, which contain the drug albuterol, range from $30 to $60.
Perhaps I’m just being cynical. I’m sure it’s just a coincidence that cheap over-the-counter inhalers are being banned for a completely unnecessary reason and the only legal alternatives cost up to three times as much.