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Thursday, November 28, 2002Robert Seidman, chief pharmacy officer at WellPoint Health Networks Inc., of Thousand Oaks, Calif., said that patients with his company would indeed be induced to buy Claritin. He said the company would cover more expensive prescription alternatives only when patients had side effects with Claritin, or if the medicine failed to help them. It's a curious thing, but medication that seems to work quite well, suddenly stops being effective when it becomes over the counter. I saw this happen to Monistat, the anti-fungal cream for yeast infections. Before it went over the counter, it was the treatment of choice and patients rarely complained that it didn't work. Once it became over the counter, patients began to claim it didn't work for them. The same with Zantac. Before it was over the counter, it was very effective for ulcers and gastritis. Now, even the higher dose prescription version of it doesn't seem to be effective. In the case of Monistat, I used to think that patients just wanted the medication that would be covered by insurance - i.e. the prescription variety. But now that I've seen the same thing happen to Zantac, I have to wonder if there isn't some sort of reverse placebo effect going on here; that there's an suspicion that over-the-counter medication is less potent than prescription medicine which influences its subjective effectiveness. We'll see what happens with over-the-counter Claritin. Ten to one there will be a sharp increase in people who find it no longer works so well for them. UPDATE: A reader sent along this Canadian (where they have more over-the-counter options than the US) about easily availability and efficacy: Claritin has been available over the counter here in Canada for quite a long time (more than a decade, IIRC). A quick Web search showed that Canadian OTC Claritin is identical to American perscription Claritin (loratadine 10 mg); indeed, there's an e-company (www.only-in-canada.com) that is buying Canadian Claritin and reselling it to Americans (for a small markup, of course). Is it that much easier to take medications like Claritin OTC in Canada than it is in the U.S. (regulations/market demand/whatever)? [ed. note - Yes, it is.] FWIW, I have hay fever (partially controlled by an annual course of Pollinex R), and I've found that Claritin doesn't really work to control my residual symptoms. I'd claim this is because it's OTC instead of persciption :-) , except that another non-drowsy antihistamine called Reactine (cetirizine hydrochloride 10 mg, sold by Pfizer) does work for me--and Reactine is also OTC in Canada. posted by Sydney on 11/28/2002 01:25:00 AM 0 comments 0 Comments: |
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