FDA Turns on Asthma Sufferers

In an article this morning on LRC, Vin Suprynowicz reports that as of January 1 asthma sufferers will have new, "environmentally-friendly" inhalers to use. They will have these new inhalers whether they like it or not, because the government has acted in the "public interest" in forcing them to switch; the old ones have been pulled from the shelves. Quite coincidentally, the new inhalers cost some three times more than the previous ones, raising their costs to about $40 apiece. Given that many respiratory sufferers are poor, this is hardly welcome news. Suprynowicz writes:

Why not wait to make the change after generic alternatives become available? Skeptics point out that changing now could mean billions more dollars for the three drug companies that hold patents on the replacement HFA-albuterol inhalers, according to Emily Harrison, writing in the August issue of Scientific American.

For many people the cost of breathing will not only soar, it will be more of a hassle because the approved gadgets need to be primed more often and tend to clog more frequently. With the tripled expense and the additional usage problems, some asthmatics will be less rigorous in applying treatment, and this could mean an increase in avoidable deaths. But who cares about 22.9 million American asthma sufferers when there's a planet to save?

Of course, no one knows for sure that the old inhalers were a threat to our existence, but that's irrelevant. The radical greens treat their computer models as papal decrees and regard inconvenient findings as heresy. Mimicking the greens, Suprynowicz says: “The debate is over! No time to dilly-dally! By the time we know, it’ll be too late!”

They might be right. By the time they're done working us over, it could be too late.