U.S. Finally Catches Up With The Rest Of The World With Inhaler Change
Finally, after a number of years, the government has required that sellers in the U.S. replace the old CFC-propelled inhalers, used by many people, with HFA propelled inhalers.
The change in law legally occurred on the last day of December last year. Fundamentally, the intent for the change in the law was for environmental reasons. The old CFC inhalers used chlorofluorocarbon. Studies have shown that chlorofluorocarbon is one of the major culprits when it comes to depleting the atmosphere’s ozone layer. When a CFC inhaler is used, the person breathes in chlorofluorocargon along with whatever medicine he is taking. And then, when the person exhales, he exhales the CFC also. When the CFC hits the atmosphere, ultraviolet light breaks them down. This is what causes the ozone to be depleted.
This country is one of the last of the major industrialized nations to apply the change. Nations such as Canada, Europe, and Japan had all previously made the change.
U.S. citizens use drugs every year for things llike allergy free dogs, pollen allergy, and allergy shots. And even though the law changed last year to prevent the old inhalers from being produced and sold, many patients undoubtedly are still using some of the older ones that they purchased prior to this year.
HFA, or hydrofluoroalkane, is an environmentally friendly propellant that, according to the FDA, is much more environmentally friendly.
Since the changeover, users of the new HFA are primarily experiencing two differences. The biggest change is that the newer model inhalers tend to get clogged more frequently whereas with the older inhalers, this was not much of a problem. The other change, from a patient standpoint, is that the taste is a bit different.
It might seem that the tiny amount of propellant in each inhaler wouldn’t make a big difference. But there are million of these inhalers in use around the world each year. Because of this, the change is expected to significantly decrease the amount of harm done to the environment.
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