By Taryn Roberts | Special to The OBSERVER
OPINION – I was in disbelief when I learned my local pharmacy might stop flavoring medications for my children due to newly proposed regulations from the California State Board of Pharmacy.
As a mother of four children under 12, I am always getting prescriptions filled. This year alone, my children have had three ear infections. While they all like flavoring, I have one son who insists on it. Bubblegum, to be specific.
I shudder to think about the potential tantrums I would face. And what some people may not realize is that we’re not talking about a one-time problem. Antibiotics must be administered several times each day – for as long as ten days or more.
By my count, that is at least 20 or more battles with my children that, as a mother, I can do without. It’s hard enough raising children. I don’t need additional, unnecessary challenges.
Of course, as a mother, I thought the new medicine flavor regulations were because of some health reasons. But when I talked to my pharmacist and investigated it, this change is being made because of some unintended consequence about a piece of legislation (Assembly Bill 973) that was voted in 2019 and was supposed to be specific to compounding pharmacies, not our community ones.
For over a decade, more than 3,000 community pharmacies in California flavored 300,000 – 500,000 medications every year without a reported adverse event or incident of harm. There are 6 million children under the age of 11 that live in California. For a child struggling to take their medicine, and caregivers struggling to administer it, flavoring can be a lifesaver.
Assemblymembers Tina McKinnon (D-Inglewood), Jacqui Irwin (D-Thousand Oaks), and Tom Lackey (R-Palmdale), both Democratic and Republican members, have introduced Assembly Bill 782 to stop the California Board of Pharmacy from trying to fix something that isn’t broken. The board wants to redefine flavoring medicine as a service only compounding pharmacies can do.
Compounding pharmacies make custom medications for people with highly specific medication needs and requirements. Flavoring medicine isn’t one of them. In fact, for over a decade, the California State Board of Pharmacy has allowed local pharmacies to flavor medicine for our kids – that is, millions of flavored medications. Now they want to change the rules and make it harder on us.
Toexamine how difficult this situation can be for parents, look at the limited list of available compound pharmacies. The Alliance of Pharmacy Compounding finder: https://a4pc.org/find-a-compounder/. For example, if you live in Redding, you must drive 100 miles roundtrip for medicine flavoring at a compounding pharmacy in Eureka. Type in Chula Vista, California, and see for yourself how far you would have to travel.
Assembly Bill 782 is working its way through the California State Legislature and would explicitly state that flavoring medicine is not part of the compounding process. Read the language for yourself. It is simple and continues to give us parents easy access to flavored medicine for our children.
(b) Notwithstanding subdivision (a), “compounding” does not include reconstitution of a drug pursuant to a manufacturer’s directions, the sole act of tablet splitting or crushing, capsule opening, or the addition of a flavoring agent to enhance palatability.
https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202320240AB782
While I am dismayed that the California State Board of Pharmacy is attempting to take medicine flavoring away from parents, I am delighted that our elected officials are working hard to prevent this from happening.
I hope you are too. Please get informed, get involved, and share this information with your family and friends.
Taryn Roberts is an accountant and a mother of four.