Health

Should Prescription Allergy Drugs Be Sold Over the Counter?

By CBSNews.com staff CBSNews.com staff

January 31, 2002 / 8:41 AM EST / CBS

The newest prescription allergy medicines have put the bounce back in Mary Gwynn's game.

Her allergies make her wheeze and cough but a daily dose of Allegra eases her symptoms. Though sold cheaply over the counter in many industrialized countries, Gwynn has to have a prescription from a doctor to get hers.

"I assume they're pretty expensive but I don't even know the price. I don't think about it," says Gwynn.

But insurance companies do, and California behemoth WellPoint wants to stop paying $45 million a year to cover the costs of Allegra and the similar drugs Claritin and Zyrtec.

"There are 40 million allergy sufferers in the US. They deserve ready and easy access to these incredibly safe and effective drugs," says Rob Seidman, WellPoint spokeperson.

The insurance industry will take that argument to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), requesting the drugs be made available over the counter. It will point to the drug companies' own ads as proof.

"Claritin has a low occurrence of side effects--similar to sugar pill," says one Claritin ad.

"If they are advertising them like candy, they should be sold like candy," says Seidman.

The FDA showdown will pit the insurance giant against the pharmaceutical companies, which want the drugs to remain available by prescription only. Last year the three medications accounted for $5 billion in sales.

In a written statement, Claritin maker Schering-Plough contends, "the move would force patients to self-diagnose and self-treat," which "raises serious questions about quality of care."

And California allergist and pharmaceutical spokesman Jorge Quel says he fears that if the drugs go over the counter his poorer patients, now covered by state insurance, won't be able to afford them: "The full cost of the medication will be up to the patient," says Quel.

Right now that's about $70 a month. The insurance company WellPoint claims that would drop dramatically if the drugs were to be sold over the counter--putting them in the same price range as the current over-the-counter allergy drugs that many say have far worse side effects.