Word: pharmacists
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After a decade of grim headlines about spiraling hospital bills and shifty HMOs, the boom in self-medication comes as no surprise. "People are fed up with the high costs and side effects of drugs," says Earl Mindell, a registered pharmacist and author of Secret Remedies (Simon & Schuster, 1997), a new study of the self-care movement. "We're doubling our knowledge about nutrition every 18 months. So people wonder, instead of treating the symptoms as we've always been taught, why not help your body fight off the problem in the first place...
Michelle Crider, 28, was speechless. The pharmacist had just said, "No." The married mother of a two-year-old daughter, Crider was concerned that she might become pregnant after having intercourse with her husband. She called her doctor, who prescribed a so-called morning-after formula: four birth-control pills to prevent implantation of a fertilized egg, a use consistent with recent regulations from the Food and Drug Administration. Then the doctor called Crider back: the pharmacy manager at Longs Drug Store in Temecula, California, had refused to fill the order, citing his moral beliefs...
...pharmacist, John Boling, had support. The 6,000-member California Pharmacists Association last year adopted a policy allowing pharmacists to refuse to fill prescriptions based on "ethical, moral or religious grounds," says Carlo Michelotti, the group's interim chief. "We supported this pharmacist's action. A pharmacist has a right to his moral beliefs. Did he do anything to interfere with a patient's care? In this case, relatively...
...Crider was enraged. "I'm no activist," says the former health-clinic employee. "But this was outrageous. I've had difficult pregnancies, and I wasn't ready to get pregnant again. This was a legitimate, legal prescription. Imagine if a woman who was raped had this experience. Is a pharmacist supposed to preach religion...
...violate store policy. Longs has reprimanded the pharmacist. Says spokesman Clay Seland: "Our policy is that a pharmacist, if he has moral objections, should refer the prescription to another on-duty pharmacist, or to another Longs, or to a competing pharmacy, if necessary." Collisions between beliefs and access to medication will increase as controversial new drugs surface and unconventional uses for old ones increase--such as those used in physician-assisted suicide. A recent survey of 625 pharmacists showed that 82% of them believe they have the right to refuse to fill a prescription for a drug such...