[Education and Welfare] Fwd: [acb-l] [leadership] Accessible Prescription Drug Labeling Language to beIncluded in Broader Senate Bill

Fri Apr 20 16:09:59 CDT 2012

skyp -k.c.kitty

Begin forwarded message:

From: peter altschul <paltschul at centurytel.net>
Date: April 20, 2012 2:10:04 PM CDT
To: Acb-l <acb-l at acb.org>
Subject: [acb-l] [leadership] Accessible Prescription Drug Labeling Language to beIncluded in Broader Senate Bill

---- Original Message ------
From: "Eric Bridges" <ebridges at acb.org
Subject: [leadership] Accessible Prescription Drug Labeling Language to beIncluded in Broader Senate Bill
Date sent: Fri, 20 Apr 2012 13:10:37 -0400

Over the past year ACB has been working in a bipartisan and bicameral
fashion to have accessible prescription drug labeling legislation
introduced.

In February many of you will recall that Representative Markey (D-MA)
introduced H.R.4087, Prescription Drug Labeling Promotion Act of 2012.  The
introduction of this legislation enabled negotiations to intensify with the
Senate Health Education Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee on this
important issue.  H.R.  4087 has been used as the foundation for our
discussions with HELP Committee staff.

I am excited to report that language that is very similar to that of H.R.
4087 will be included in the Food and Drug Administration Safety and
Innovation Act when it is marked up next Wednesday by the HELP Committee.
The language that will appear in the bill has been agreed upon by Senator
Harkin, Chairman of the committee, as well as Senator Enzi, the committee's
Ranking Member and is deemed noncontroversial.

The text is quite similar to H.R.  4087 which is very encouraging.  We are
continuing to work to ensure that this same language will be included in the
House's version  as well.

Description of the Legislative Text

Under the HELP Committee's legislation, representatives of consumers and
pharmacies and the U.S.  Access Board will convene a working group.  This
group will establish "best practices" for pharmacies to ensure that people
who are blind or visually impaired have access to prescription drug
labeling.  In other words, the group's recommendations would provide guidance
to pharmacists on actions they can take to ensure that the blind or visually
impaired understand the information on their prescription and to enable
independent access to that information.

The guidelines should provide pharmacies a range of options they can choose
to offer consumers, as well as allow additional flexibility for smaller
pharmacies.  Many of these options are low-cost, widely-available, and
compatible with equipment already in pharmacies.

The working group would consider options including:

.         Enhanced visual aids such as large-print font, sans-serif font,
and high-contrast printing;

.         Non-visual aids such as braille, and;

.         Auditory aids such as digital voice recorders attached to pill
bottles, "talking bottles" that provide audible label information, and Radio
Frequency Identification (RFID) tags or auxiliary smart labels, which are
programmed, printed, and affixed to a prescription label container by a
pharmacist.  These labels can then be accessed by the consumer privately and
independently, using a hand-held device that reads out the label
information.

After pharmacies have had the opportunity to implement the guidelines, the
Government Accountability Office (GAO) will review the degree to which
pharmacies are in compliance.  They will examine whether the blind or
visually impaired still lack safe and independent access to prescription
drug labeling and issue a report to Congress on the remaining gaps and the
scope of the problem

_______________________________________________
acb-l mailing list
acb-l at acb.org
http://www.acb.org/mailman/listinfo/acb-l
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://moblind.org/pipermail/ew_moblind.org/attachments/20120420/448fbe54/attachment.html>