Latest news with #prescription
CBC
a day ago
- Health
- CBC
Almost 50% more IUDs, implants dispensed after B.C. made birth control free: study
A new study out of UBC is looking at the use of contraception in B.C. after the province began covering the cost of prescription birth control in 2023. It shows a jump in birth control prescriptions overall. But it also reveals that users opted for longer-lasting options that cost more up front. The study's lead author, Laura Schummers, an assistant professor at UBC in the faculty of pharmaceutical sciences, spoke to CBC News about her research.
BreakingNews.ie
2 days ago
- BreakingNews.ie
Dublin woman who took hospital prescription pad to get tablets is jailed
A woman who took half a pad of prescriptions from a Dublin hospital which she later used to make fake prescriptions for sleeping tablets has been jailed for 18 months. Kym Dunleavy (50) St Josephs Place, Dublin 7, pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to multiple charges of using a false instrument, a medical prescription which she knew to be false, on various dates between November 2018 and April 2019. Advertisement She has 71 previous convictions, mostly for theft and fraud offences. Keith Spencer BL, defending, told the court at a previous court hearing, that his client 'suffered unimaginable trauma' over the years, including the fact that her mother was murdered by her (Dunleavy's) brother, two of her brothers were shot dead and her son was killed while he was working with the British Armed Forces. Garda Joseph Melvin told Fiona Crawford BL, prosecuting, at that same hearing that gardaí were contacted after one particular pharmacy raised concerns that a customer had used a false prescription in an attempt to purchase medication. Dunleavy was identified as a suspect after gardaí viewed CCTV footage from the pharmacy. They later secured a warrant to search her home where a prescription pad from Beaumont Hospital was found under a mattress. Advertisement Gardaí spoke to the head pharmacist in Beaumont Hospital who confirmed that while Dunleavy had previously been a patient there, she had not attended the hospital for a number of years. The pharmacist confirmed that they were forgeries but said the prescription pad was legitimate. Gda Melvin agreed with Mr Spencer that Dunleavy told gardaí during interview that she had 'behaved rather badly' and had taken the pad from Beaumont. She said she had approached her GP because the one sleeping tablet she had previously been prescribed was not enough to deal with her anxiety. Dunleavy told gardaí that the anxiety was 'coming noon and night – horrific visions from my past that were prone to surface at night'. She said the sleeping tablets assisted her as she would 'just sleep and when I wake there are no horrors'. Advertisement Dunleavy told gardaí that the doctor increased her prescription to two tablets but it was still not enough and she used the forged prescriptions to get more tablets. 'I am exceptionally drained from this. I have visions of my mother's murder – they are frightening,' Dunleavy said before she told gardaí she had put 'a brave face' on her addiction for a long time. 'I was not raised to be this person,' Dunleavy told gardaí. Mr Spencer told the court that Dunleavy's brother was murdered in 2005 and her mother was murdered by Dunleavy's other brother in 2013. Her sister also died giving birth and Dunleavy had helped to care for that baby. Advertisement Counsel said Dunleavy's son had died while on tour with the British Armed Forces. Mr Spencer said since this offence Dunleavy has managed to self-detox but has isolated herself from the local community in order to achieve this. She hopes to get back into community once she has got a handle on her addiction. Mr Spencer said his client had been referred to the psychiatric services but she has not followed up on it. Judge Orla Crowe said that Dunleavy has a considerable history of offending and a probation report puts her at high risk of re-offending. Advertisement She said however, there are 'certain positives' in Dunleavy's life, including that she has no convictions since 2021 and she no longer abuses prescribed medication. Judge Crowe noted that Dunleavy has not followed through on referrals to psychiatric services nor has she properly engaged with the Probation Service, even though the service has indicated that Dunleavy would benefit from probation supervision. Judge Crowe had previously adjourned the case to allow Dunleavy the opportunity to 'put her best foot forward'. Ireland Physiotherapist who gave Botox-like drug to client... Read More Sentencing her on Monday, Judge Crowe said that since her remand in custody Dunleavy 'is still struggling'. She noted that the maximum penalty for the offence was 10 years before she said because of the 'considerable amount of time that has since passed' she felt a headline sentence of two and half years would be appropriate. Judge Crowe said taking the mitigation in the case into account she would impose a sentence of 18 months in prison. Dunleavy said the prison term was 'disgraceful' and 'ridiculous' as she was escorted away by prison officers.
ABC News
2 days ago
- Health
- ABC News
Government introduces bill to facilitate cheaper medicines
This week the government introduces a new bill lowering the cost of prescription medicines. The Health Minister Mark Butler speaks to Sarah Ferguson.
News24
3 days ago
- Health
- News24
Should pharmaceutical advertising in SA be better regulated, and why?
Anyone who has travelled to the United States will have been struck by the extent to which medicines, both those requiring a prescription and those that can be bought by consumers without a prescription, are advertised on television. The situation in South Africa is quite different. While there are many advertisements for medicines shown on local television stations, only some are specific about the proprietary (brand) name of the medicine and its indications. Other advertisements focus instead on the indication (the reason for using the medicine), but do not identify it by name. Instead, viewers are urged to approach their pharmacies or medical practitioners. At a different time, an advertisement may be flighted which identifies a medicine, its strength, pack size and perhaps price, but provides no information about what the indication for the medicine is. To what extent does this represent meaningful and justified regulatory control over pharmaceutical marketing? Only two countries with effective medicines regulatory systems allow prescription-only medicines to be advertised directly to the consumer, these being the United States and New Zealand. Other countries, including South Africa, restrict the advertising of prescription-only medicines to the health professionals who can prescribe or dispense them. READ | #InsideTheBox with Dr Andy Gray | Who can prescribe medicines in SA? One of the key justifications for this restriction on the ability of the pharmaceutical industry to market their products is that direct-to-consumer advertising may result in more inappropriate prescribing, when prescribers are under pressure from patients demanding medicines they have seen advertised. Short television advertisements are unlikely to be able to convey a balanced account of the potential benefits and harms of medicines, especially those that are new to the market. South African law contains an interesting variant to regulation in this area. General Regulation 42 issued in terms of the Medicines and Related Substances Act, 1965, allows medicines containing substances in schedules 0 and 1 to be advertised to the public, but requires that those containing substances in schedules 2 to 6 to be advertised 'only for the information of pharmacists, medical practitioners, dentists, veterinarians, practitioners and other authorised prescribers' or 'in a publication which is normally or only made available' to such persons. While Schedule 0 medicines can be bought in any retail outlet, Schedule 1 and 2 medicines can only be obtained from a pharmacy but not self-selected from a shelf. The justification for that particular cut-off is difficult to trace in any policy document. An amendment to the regulation was published for comment in February 2023, but the final regulation has yet to be issued by the minister of health. 'Failure to follow through' The fundamental problem, however, lies in a failure to follow through on the legislation previously passed by Parliament. Section 18C of the current version of the Medicines and Related Substances Act, 1965, contains a prescriptive instruction to the minister. 'The minister shall, after consultation with the relevant industries and other stakeholders, make regulations relating to the marketing of medicines, medical devices or IVDs and such regulations shall also provide for codes of practice for relevant industries,' it states. From 2003 to 2017, the section read: 'The minister shall, after consultation with the pharmaceutical industry and other stakeholders, make regulations relating to the marketing of medicines, and such regulations shall also provide for an enforceable code of practice.' The expansion of the remit to include medical devices and in vitro diagnostics (IVDs) was added by Parliament in 2008 but only took effect in 2017. READ | #InsideTheBox with Dr Andy Gray | Are clinical trial participants in South Africa protected? The wording is peremptory – the minister 'shall' – which leaves no room for delay. While the word 'enforceable' has been removed, the very intent of a regulation is that it should be enforced. That no regulations have been forthcoming in more than 20 years is an extraordinary failure of governance. That failure is compounded by another act of omission. Section 18A of the act states: 'No person shall supply any medicine, medical device or IVD according to a bonus system, rebate system or any other incentive scheme.' The law also enables the minister to 'prescribe acceptable and prohibited acts' in this regard, in consultation with the Pricing Committee. No final regulations have been issued since 2017. The Pricing Committee is established to advise the minister on matters relating to the pricing of medicines, such as the annual maximum increase and the dispensing fees charged by pharmacists and licensed dispensing practitioners. It is already an offence, in terms of Section 29 of the act, for any person to make 'any false or misleading statement in connection with any medicine, scheduled substance, medical device or IVD'. Regulation 42 also states: 'No advertisement for a medicine may contain a statement which deviates from, with or goes beyond the evidence submitted in the application for registration of such medicine with regard to its safety, quality or efficacy where such evidence has been accepted by the authority in respect of such medicine and incorporated into the approved information of such medicine'. While these two provisions may prevent false or misleading advertising, they are limited in their scope. In particular, since no complementary medicines are yet registered by the South African Health Products Regulatory Authority (SAHPRA), none have an approved professional information (previously known as a package insert) or a patient information leaflet. Industry self-regulation The pharmaceutical and medical devices industries have not been idle during this period of government inaction. A non-profit, self-regulatory body, the Marketing Code Authority (MCA), has developed a Code of Marketing Practice, drawing on international guidelines. This code provides for sanctions when rules are broken, following adjudication of a complaint. Fines of up to a maximum of R500 000 can be levied for severe or serious offences, which would, for example, pose 'safety implications for patients'. However, as a self-regulatory body, the MCA cannot require membership by any licensed manufacturer. It means that those manufacturers which are not members of the MCA are not bound by the code and cannot be sanctioned. The MCA therefore advocates that compliance with a code should be a condition to get a licence to operate as a manufacturer. The MCA has also responded to draft regulations on perverse incentives. At a time when deliberate disinformation is being disseminated from many quarters, including from government authorities previously considered to be reliable, a weakened regulatory system cannot simply be allowed to stagger along, in defiance of the express instructions of the legislature. Public safety demands an effective regulatory mechanism to proactively examine pharmaceutical marketing, across all media, the ability to take meaningful action where transgressions are identified and an even playing field for all actors. - Gray is a senior lecturer at the University of KwaZulu-Natal and co-director of the WHO Collaborating Centre on Pharmaceutical Policy and Evidence Based Practice. This is the fourth of a new series of #InsideTheBox columns he is writing for Spotlight. Disclosure: Gray is a member of South Africa's National Essential Medicines List Committee and co-chairs its Expert Review Committee.
ABC News
7 days ago
- Entertainment
- ABC News
Salvador Plasencia pleads guilty to supplying ketamine to Matthew Perry
A California doctor has pleaded guilty to supplying Matthew Perry with the prescription anaesthetic ketamine in the weeks leading up to the Friends star's overdose death. Salvador Plasencia is one of five people charged in relation to Perry's death in October 2023. He was charged with four counts of illegally distributing ketamine, and faces up to 40 years in prison when sentenced, according to prosecutors. In a plea agreement with prosecutors, Plasencia admitted injecting Perry with ketamine at the actor's home and in a Santa Monica parking lot in the weeks before his death, and that doing so was not for legitimate medical purposes. Ketamine is a short-acting anaesthetic with hallucinogenic properties, sometimes prescribed to treat depression and anxiety but also abused by recreational users. Plasencia, who operated an urgent care clinic, obtained the ketamine from another doctor, Mark Chavez of San Diego. According to court filings, Plasencia texted Chavez about Perry, writing: "I wonder how much this moron will pay." Chavez and two other co-defendants have already pleaded guilty in the case, but all are yet to be sentenced. A fifth defendant, Jasveen Sangha, whom authorities said was a drug dealer known to customers as the "ketamine queen", was charged with supplying the dose that killed Perry. She has pleaded not guilty and is scheduled to go on trial in August. Prior to his death, Perry had publicly acknowledged decades of substance abuse, including during the years he starred as Chandler Bing on the hit 1990s television sitcom Friends. Reuters
