January 7, 2008

The Honorable Vincent C. Gray
Chairman, Council of the District of Columbia
John A. Wilson Building
1350 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20004

Dear Chairman Gray:

On behalf of every older American residing in the District of Columbia, including those who proudly number among RetireSafe’s nearly 400,000 senior citizen supporters nationwide, we urge you to take a step back and at least delay, if not defeat, the so-called “SafeRx Act” now being considered for passage by the Council. We believe that course of action would benefit all patients, especially the elderly citizens of the District.

Much of this legislation, while perhaps well-intended, is ill-considered and would benefit greatly from additional study. If it is enacted in its present form it will severely limit treatment options, increase costs for patients, and perhaps cost lives. SafeRx will be massively duplicative in its design and application, creating new bureaucracies and fees that will ultimately increase the burden on patients. If health care cost reduction is a goal of the Council, this measure will run completely counter to that worthy goal, obviously increasing patient costs for no clear purpose other than perhaps to harass the pharmaceutical companies and their salespeople.

Under SafeRx, prescription drug samples that many low-income seniors depend on may cease to be an option for District physicians and their patients. More importantly, because of the bureaucratic hurdles the Act would impose, the important off-label use of critical new drugs will most likely be a thing of the past in the District. While RetireSafe has been a leader in patient education, urging patients to question doctors and pharmacists when medications are switched or new treatments are proposed, we strongly oppose new (SafeRx) paper-work burdens that will make physicians much less likely to utilize off-label treatments that are proven lifesavers. Patients should be fully informed, but off-label use should not be discouraged when lives are at stake.

As the Washington Post noted in its December 10, 2007 editorial, The Wrong Prescription, there are many much more pressing health care problems facing the District. SafeRx will only add to and complicate those problems. A December 15 follow-up Post letter-to-the-editor from the Center for Medicine in the Public Interest rightly noted the dangers of the SafeRx “Pharmaceutical Education Fund,” which will be used to justify “evidence-based,” older, cheaper medicines for the poorest patients, thus denying them the newest and best medications. We agree with that letter, Let the Doctors Decide.

For all of the above reasons, plus the possibility that much of the SafeRx Act may be struck down by the Courts (see the recent Maine decision), we urge you to either defeat this measure, or to table it for further, much-needed study.

Sincerely,

Michelle Plasari
President