Action | Initial regulations |
Stage | Emergency/NOIRA |
Comment Period | Ended on 5/3/2017 |
79 comments
These new regulations are hurting people that have a documented hypersensitivity/allergy on record. They are already being turned away from treatment because the doctors hands are tied. According to the legislative site the bill was never signed. When I called the Governors office on march 16th I was told the bill hadn't been signed. It was put into effect anyway. I can understand regulations on medications but to turn patients away because they cannot have the combination drug is wrong. These patients have been trying to get their lives together, and as far as I know most doctors won't write buprenorphine mono unless they have a reason too in the first place. I urge you all to amend the regulations and allow people with a hypersensitivity/allergy to also be allowed to get a prescription at the very least. I believe OTP cinics should also be allowed to dispense it in take homes, because patients that go to these clinics have earned their take homes just like a methadone patient did. They went for months on end to earn their couple of take homes and after around 9 months they earn a week. Switching what medications an OTP can dispense increases cost to the patient and the clinic. The patients that do have a documented allergy on file should be allowed to continue to get a prescription. It isn't their fault they cannot have the combination drug. I'm sure if they could they would rather do that than lose treatment all together. The 2 closest clinics in my area are both around 50 miles away one way. One of them is in Virginia, and this town has no doctors in it so a lot of the people that are struggling with opiate dependency are now back on the streets. I am from Virginia originally and live right on its boarder now. In this war on addiction kicking people out of treatment because of something they cannot control doesn't do anything but hurt the communities around us.
I am very concerned about this bill and the adverse affects on those individuals struggling with opiate addiction and allergic to naloxone. I personally am aware of one young one who has been successful with subutex who now has to start a new medication with a low dose of naloxone who after the first day is experiencing severe nausea and depression and has hives on her neck. She is a freshman at VCU and has done well on subutex over the past 7 months. After 2 years of multiple rehabs, IOP's, different medication management programs including suboxone which she is allergic to and has had ER visit for respiratory distress after starting suboxone. My understanding is that the SAMSHA recommendations include subutex for individuals who have medically been determined to have an allergy for naloaxone. I am perplexed why the Commonwealth of VA would go against those recommendations and outlaw any treatment for anyone with an opiate addiction that been successful and then mandate taking a medicine that one is allergic too as the only alternative for medication assisted treatment. Seems like a huge liability issue with the very real possibility of death either by overdose of an opiate after relapse because she can not tolerate the naloxone or a life threatening reaction to naloxone. This is a no brainer and breaks my heart after coming so far personally in this fight for this young girl's life. This law will fail her and most likely will be a death sentence for my loved one....I do not want to loose her and I am angry that this law is taking away the one treatment that has worked for her after so many failed attempts. I do not understand why goverment has to interfer with medicine especially when in this case the medical profession has done a good job in not giving up on this one precious being. I realize the subutex can be abused however why for those who it is working and have an allergy to naloxone and is not abusing this medication, why should the only available treatment that worked be taken away. I think the Commonwealth of VA is punishing and perhaps will cause death for this young girl who is working very hard to beat this addiction. You are setting her up to die in my judgement. My background is in nursing and I am an LPC in Fairfax. Prfessionally and personally I oppose this bill and know first hand there will be fatal outcomes.
I am highly allergic to naloxone and while I agree in emergency forms it's a miracle medication, to some it could also be deadly. When on SUBOXONE I had a lot of "illnesses" passing out, legs going numb, hives, throat feeling as if it was swelling along with MAJOR weight loss I was being tested for cancers and thyroid issues as I had these severe lumps in the back of my neck due to the naloxone also being only 98 lbs and when starting out in late 2013 I was 175. I was switched and my life, depression and health suddenly changed drastically for the better! 16 months on buprenorphine I am completely back to normal with NO strange symptoms, until the switch back tommro which I will be back to losing extreme amounts of weight in which I plan to document daily. I got pregnant when I made the switch however also HAD to stay on (I was tapering off because of how sick I was on suboxone, at 1 mg) i agree that laws DO need to be in place but the allergy tests cannot be faked if one is truly allergic as many others and myself are. Many people I know may relapse because of this people that have lived normal lives on MAT doing the program right up until this was in place. If you're allergic to peanuts, you cannot have them. It's the same thing with this. I know some do abuse this life saving medication but I can promise it's a lot less than the ones actually doing right by it! Please reconsider the allergy test exception because there IS people who cannot take it but want to do right in life. I am tapering again now off the MAT program but wanted to at least taper comfortably and safely without hospitalizations and health issues as I am a mom to 2 small children!
Subutex should allowed to be given, not taken away. Some people are allergic to the naloxone, or cannot afford Suboxone. Anything that can help our addicts get clean legally and responsibly should be allowed. If abuse or illegal selling is a worry, then reduce the prescription length, and keep the practice of counting pills. Or do something like they do with suboxone strips--put each pill in an individual packet and have them counted at the doctors office--used ones and unused ones!
Please reconsider adding a clause to this bill to include people with a hypersensitivity to naloxone if it isn't included what is a person to do the only option is methadone a far more dangerous drug
Please undo this new regulation. I am on subutex and it has saved my life. I was pregnant and breastfeeding and I'm allergic to naloxone. I really really loved my pharmacy and the people who work there. Please take this back!
HB2163 will hurt people more than help, it will cost lives. Please take it back, don't do this. Addicts deserve to be rehabilitated, they deserve all the resources they can get, they are not scum or worthless so please don't treat them as such. Some people are allergic to naloxone and honestly it doesn't matter whether a drug has naloxone in it or not, if the person wants to abuse it they will. I was on suboxone treatment for several months and it worked wonders, but I wasn't ready to stop using and my partner was using and I wasn't willing to get away from him so I started back up. Now I'm on methadone because it's cheaper and works even better for me. Please don't make it even harder for people who have it hard already and feel so much guilt and remorse. Don't be inhumane.
I have been in a subutex outpatient program for about a year now. I have tried other rehab programs in the past, including methadone, but subutex is by far the best. Methadone is extremely hard on your body and the withdraws actually motivate you to keep taking it instead of trying to lower your dose and get clean. Subutex, on the other hand hasn't had any negative impact on my body and I have easily decreased my dose from 24mg per day down to 6mg per day in a matter of three months. I am unable to take suboxone because I have an allergy to naloxone that is a legitimate threat to my wellbeing. My response to naloxone is rapid heart rate, wheezing, dizzy, faint, throat swelling, and without the doctor who recognized the reaction, I may not be here today. I can't believe that this bill was rushed through without any consideration for the people who were benefiting from its use, or people who couldn't take suboxone as an alternative.
There definitely needs to be provisions to this awful law which consider those patients who are allergic to suboxone.
People that are truly allergic are losing treatment totally. Doctors that know their patient is allergy/hypersensitivity they will not write you suboxone or generiic buprenorphine/naloxone PERIOD. I know because someone close to just went throught it. The doctor told them to seek treatment in another state, that they would not right them because of the tongue swelling, and throat swelling. This patient has a true hypersensitivity/allergy and the doctor was so scared of the reaction he wouldn't try to give him the combination tablet because of the tongue swellng. What is a patient to do then, when the doctor cares for the patient but cant treatment. He won't take a chance on writing the Suboxone or the Generic. These patients deserve treatment with this medication too, and methadone isn't a option. He shouldnt have been punished for something he cannot control. What is he supposed to do now?
Why should my son lose treatment after he has done nothing but follow the rules. His doctor won't even write it unless he cannot have suboxone. Is it fair suboxone patients get to keep on getting treatment, but people like my son that allergies, hypersensitivity whatever you want to call it have tongue swelling, throat swelling, and Hives documented just lose treatment. My son was getting his life together, and doing well on buprenorphine treatment, and he has no alternative. He cannot go to a methadone clinic everyday, and everyone knows methadone is a far more powerful drug. Please reconsider this bill before people lose their kids to the streets.
SAMSHA recommends use of Buprenorpine mono product when there is an allergy or other adverse medical reaction to products containing Naloxone. My 19 year old daughter has only had success on Subutex. Naloxone resulted in hives, rash, nausea, depression and a respiratory reaction requiring ER intervention. This mandate not only ignores established guidelines, it is punitive in nature in that patients who have followed protocol and have demonstrated success are being denied proven effective treatment. Any drug can be abused: this mandate is not going to assist or deter active addicts who are not invested in recovery. It will put the fragile recovery of many others at risk and denies physicians the right to use sound clinical judgement in continuing Bupe only protocols with patients who have demonstrated success and have documented sensitvity to Naloxone. A well intended law with potentially fatal outcomes.
first I've been clean for 5 1/2 years! I've been taking subutex because I'm allergic to the naloxone. I had to leave my doctor of 5 1/2 years to go to another states so I won't relapse! As my treatment is none of the governments business in the first place!!! I understand people abuse this medication but in all HONESTY YOU WHAT MEDICATION ISNT ABUSED! Are you going to pass bills for all medication?!?!?!?! Did you go to school as long as my doctors did? Do you know the first thing about and addict???? I don't think you do! NO ADDICT GOES THROUGH CHANGE WELL! I pray this doesn't turn people back to the horrible herion that's going around killing people! Better yet WHY DONT YOU BAN THE OPIATES? That's the reason behind this! Opiates don't take the pain away but subutex does! You can't even die from it! The sad part is whoever reads this don't care about us addicts. Oh and no matter what you pass it's NOT GOING TO STOP THE FEW IDIOTS THAT ABSUE MEDICATION! Let our doctors do their jobs and you do yours by governing not by taking away the one medication that saves lives!
This was given to me by the FDA. Allergy exceptions are needed or people are going to relapse or die from this. This is NOT SAFE!
"SUBOXONE and SUBUTEX should not be administered to patients who have been shown to be hypersensitive to buprenorphine, and SUBOXONE should not be administered to patients who have been shown to be hypersensitive to naloxone."
https://dailymed.nlm.nih.gov/dailymed/drugInfo.cfm?setid=97677ce7-9562-43d0-8b99-8d1f37c1e3c6
I would never want to be forced into taking a drug I'm allergic too.
This is well intended law, however deeply flawed. It ignores established guidelines. It puts the recovery of citizens at risk and does not allow doctors the right to use sound clinical judgement. This law should be modified.
Giving buprenorphine to pain patients and animals but not the ones allergic to suboxone.. Don't you know subutex was MADE FOR ADDICTION not for pain not for animals none of that however it helps but don't ignore the reason why it was made and it legally is FDA approved FOR ADDICTION!! You can abuse anything.. I'm wondering if the plan was to start a heroin epidemic here a bigger one because I'm not sure how taking away an addicts addiction medicine solves anything.. As the board of medicine you should know that not everyone is the same, not everyone can tolerate naloxone! Go after the pain drs overprescribing to these "pain patients" which we all know half of them don't need hard medications like that and keep in mind THATS what got the addicts to need addiction medicine to begin with.. A good amount do not start out on heroin, in fact I've never met one who did it all started with the oxys, morphine, percocets you know thepharmaceuticals!