On Saturday the compounding bill passed the House by voice vote on motion to suspend the rules. The Senate could vote on it as early as today. URGENT Action Alert!
As we reported last week, the compoundingpharmacy bill we had been warning you about was scrapped because of the outcry from consumers like you. The new bill,HR.3204, the so-called Drug Quality and Security Act, was passed by the House of Representatives in a voice vote.
This means of course that there is no record of anybody’s specific vote. The chances of changing it in the Senate now are very low, but they could take up the bill under unanimous consent and voice vote as soon as today or perhaps tomorrow, so please write your senators one more time—and phone them as well!—because miracles do sometimes happen.
Let’s keep in mind the reasons why this bill, despite numerous improvements, is still so bad:
- The new bill contains sections that would ban doctors from prescribing compounded nutrients delivered intravenously unless they are on a pre-approved list, have a USP monograph, or are components of FDA-approved drugs. Imagine: your doctor cannot give you an IV containing natural vitamins and minerals unless these ingredients happen to be in some FDA approved drug! Moreover, such IVs are some of the best tools that integrative doctors have.
- The language about needing to have a USP monograph or being components of FDA-approved drugs came from an old section of the Food, Drug, and Cosmetics Act that had been deemed invalid by federal courts, so in 47 states,
physicians have recently had the freedom to prescribe and dispense compounded nutrients of their choice by IV. If the new bill passes, this will become illegal in all 50 states, at least until another legal challenge can be mounted. - The bill makes the falsification of a compounded prescription a federal criminal act. The trouble with this is that states are supposed to have jurisdiction over the practice of medicine. This will take the federal government even further into the doctor’s office.
- Also in this new bill, compounded “copies” of FDA-approved and marketed drugs would still be considered illegal. This would enable drug companies to raise
prices on some drugs to astronomical levels.
As the Senate prepares to pass this, these very bad provisions notwithstanding, we should