Government-imposed prescription requirements violate the rights of individuals to access the medicines they want. Evidence suggests they also make patients less safe, not more.
Not long ago, competent adults didn’t have to spend time and money getting a government-mandated permission slip, i.e., a prescription to take medicine. Most people consulted experts such as physicians or pharmacists before taking an unfamiliar medicine. Some drug makers, acting out of safety, reputation, and liability concerns, required doctors’ prescriptions for some of their products. Then came the “1937 elixir sulfanilamide incident.”
Sulfanilamide was the first broadly safe and effective antibiotic used systemically. The S.E. Massengill Company developed an “elixir” formulation to make it easier for children and others to ingest. Unfortunately, this solution contained diethylene glycol, a “cousin” of ethylene glycol or antifreeze — a poison. As a result, 105 people died of sulfanilamide elixir poisoning, 34 of them children. Massengill went bankrupt and the chemist who created the formula committed suicide. The incident led Congress to enact the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act of 1938.
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