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Virginia Asthma Patients Struggle With Ineffective New HFA Inhalers

On January 1, drug companies halted the production of CFC albuterol inhalers for asthma patients - the ones that have traditionally been used for asthma attack relief for decades. The product has been banned not for health reasons, but for environmental reasons - the inhalers deplete the ozone layer.

The new inhalers, however, HFA rescue inhalers, are environmentally safe by already causing controversy. ConsumerAffairs.com has written an expose on the situation, which they say has affected asthma patients all over the country.

The new inhalers use ethanol, which some patients are allergic to. In addition, the device requires the patients to take deeper breaths to receive the medication - and those in the midst of an asthma attack can only take very shallow breaths. Some inhaler users think the product is dangerous and ineffective.

One asthma patient from Glen Allen, Virginia, had this to say: This is absolutely total ignorance. People having an asthma attack and in a panic state cannot breathe in deeply. People with COPD and limited lung function -when in need of medication -cannot breathe in deeply. Recent times have shown the FDA's inability to properly understand and evaluate these life-altering decisions. If allowed to stand, these bureaucrats and their abettors will have successfully reduced the quality of life for millions of lung disease sufferers throughout the world."

The new product also costs ten times more than the old CFC device because the new product won't have a generic counterpart for seven more years.

The ban is an international one, known as the Montreal Protocol. Although the Food And Drug Administration has said that the new inhalers fell and taste different, they still work. Other health organizations have agreed, although many do say that patients need to breathe more deeply to reach the same affect as the old inhalers.

Over 400 asthma patients over the last two months have filed former complaints with the FDA. The Environmental Protection Agency, which heads the effort to regulate CFC, deferred to the FDA for answers. Currently a group plans of petitioning Congress concerning the safety of the new inhalers and the possibility that new CFC inhalers could be manufactured.

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