March 18--The Pennsylvania attorney general's office for several years has been able to
track prescription drug abuse by consulting a database of narcotics dispensed
by pharmacies.
Now, a Bucks County lawmaker wants to give physicians and pharmacists a
similar role in tracking and fighting drug abuse.
State Rep. Gene DiGirolamo, R-18th District, is sponsoring the bill to
create a database that would log pharmaceutical prescriptions written by
physicians. It would allow physicians to check a patient's prescription
history to prevent "doctor shopping."
DiGirolamo's Prescription Monitoring Program would improve
drug-prescribing practices, uncover illegal prescription drug sales and help
physicians identify patients who need help to break their addiction, he said.
It likely would be operated through the state Department of Drug and
Alcohol Programs, which broke off from the state Department of Health last
July. Pennsylvania's program would link to those in other states with similar
programs and have agreed to share the information, DiGirolamo noted.
The House Human Services Committee passed the measure last month.
DiGirolamo hopes the full House will vote on it this week.
The program is needed to stem a rising tide of drug overdoses, he said.
"This problem is just epidemic across the state," DiGirolamo said.
It's a problem nationwide. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention, drug overdose deaths in 2010, the most recent year for
which data were available, increased for the 11th consecutive year. CDC said
38,329 people died from a drug overdose in 2010, up from 37,004 in 2009.
The increase is being fueled largely by abuse of opioids such as
oxycodone, hydrocodone and methadone, CDC said. About 60 percent of drug
overdose deaths nationally involved pharmaceuticals, and about three-quarters
of them involved opioids, it said.
DiGirolamo acknowledged that protecting individuals' privacy is
paramount. The bill would allow law enforcement to access the database only
when a "legitimate" investigation is under way, he said.
That's not enough protection, said Andy Hoover, legislative director of
the ACLU of Pennsylvania. The bill, he said, lacks language that would require
law enforcement agents to secure a search warrant before analyzing the data.
"They simply can go to the Department of Drug and Alcohol Programs and
say they need this information and get it," Hoover said. "This is very
personal information."
The ACLU, which opposes the bill, also is concerned that anyone in a
doctor's or pharmacist's office would have easy access to the information.
Hoover noted that hackers broke into a similar program in Virginia
several years ago, revealing names and Social Security numbers of more than 8
million people.
The associations representing Pennsylvania's doctors and pharmacists
support the bill.
Scot Chadwick, vice president for Government Affairs at the Pennsylvania
Medical Society, said the existing database for law enforcement is
ineffective. Information is not current and only lists schedule II drugs,
which are medications that have a high potential for abuse, he said. All drug
prescriptions would be entered into the new monitoring system.
In addition, it makes sense for Pennsylvania to join the 43 other states
that already have monitoring programs, he said. "If we're the only state that
doesn't do it," he said, "we'll be advertising ourselves as a magnet for
doctor shoppers."
The state Pharmacists Association also backs a drug monitoring program,
CEO Pat Epple said.
Pharmacists hope the state will repeal the existing prescription
monitoring program, Epple said, because it would be redundant.
While most states operate monitoring programs, research on their
effectiveness is scant. Last year, The Tampa Bay Times checked a year of
Florida's monitoring program and found that the database was checked for only
2 percent of the 48 million prescriptions written.
That's because the program does not require prescribing doctors or
pharmacists to check the database. DiGirolamo's bill similarly does not
mandate a check before writing a prescription.
He said he wants to see the program operate first before considering
steps to make database checks mandatory. Nine states require physicians under
certain conditions to check their databases before writing a prescription,
according to Reuters.
Chadwick said the relatively infrequent use of the database in other
states like Florida suggests that most prescriptions are being written by
doctors who know their patients and their health needs. "The majority of the
time, there's just no reason to access it," he said.
tim.darragh@mcall.com
610 778-2259
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