Should most medicines be available without a prescription?

Yes there are numerous drugs that could easily and safely be purchased and used without wasting time and diagnosing ourselves and having a Dr come in and flop into the chair for 30 seconds and say their stupid little spiel then walk out and charge 150 bucks for doing nothing

No ! Because without expert knowledge it would certainly cause a lot of harm.

It seems that when a medication is made over the counter the price to buy it goes up drastically. Probably because insurance no longer helps with the cost.

just changed the MC to MD.

I feel comfortable but my husband would not. I am constantly checking interactions online, but I would still want a doctor or pharmacist recommendation for some meds.

When I was in practice, I worried about pyridium being OTC because it would numb the dysuria and keep the patient from coming in for a UTI but do nothing to cure the infection. Fortunately some UTI are self limited and subside with vigorous hydration and maybe acidifying the urine with cranberry juice. But we were much safer with a culture in the lab, and that was very inexpensive when we did them in our own lab. Then we learned that a single big dose of Cipro cleared most. If it did not we had a culture and sensitivity and could treat accurately. Have a serious case of pyelonephritis and urosepsis and you have a very sick person and one who may die. Love, Doc

don't want to take any medicine unless i have to. doctor should be the one to tell me that. i can google med effects but that isn't enough knowledge to jump on a pill without a prescription.

Pharmacists are highly trained and should be able to dispense appropriately to customers as they do now. What is the difference between recommending what they do now and checking the appropriateness of other medicines with the knowledge they have. That is an appropriate failsafe.

It depends on the drug. I would definitely need to see the list first. Some pharmaceuticals are well known and consumers have the knowledge and experience to ensure proper usage.

On the other hand, I believe safety is an issue. Pharmacies already have a problem with theft. So now you have people running into their local pharmacy and stealing these drugs. This will definitely lead to acute reactions creating an influx of patients in the ED. An already overrun ED, might I add. Increasing financial burden.

I agree that many Rx medications could be purchased without a script. I think many consumers have access to the information necessary to make informed decisions for many common ailments as well as for refilling meds for chronic conditions without needing to get another prescription. Of course, many drugs and/or diseases are more complex to manage; therefore there will always be a need for Dr. visits and either OTC advice or prescriptions for these cases. This type of change should be introduced carefully, with decision support tools to assist the consumer in selecting the right meds and dosages. Guardrails may also be effective (quantity and purchase frequency constraints and the need to show ID). Health professionals should be able to lookup a record of meds purchased when treating a patient. Streamlining health care should put more capability in the hands of the patient to free up professionals to focus on the more challenging cases that require their expertise. Assuming that a non-prescription drug’s cost would decrease accordingly, insurance costs should also decrease. For more expensive drugs, insurance should continue to include them in their formulary.

We already have so many drug resistant bacteria and contagious diseases without having otc anti biotic and antivirals loose out in the community

Using ChatGPT and Amazon drone delivery for medical problems will be an interesting experiment. I guess we can all use AI to tell us how to fly airplanes and obviate the need for pilots. I wonder also which medicines would be OTC as many have nasty interactions and are inappropriate for many conditions ala antibiotics for every sniffle and cough.

I would for most medicines as I am a retired physician. But new meds I know little about, as would be true for most non physician, I would feel more secure asking my primary care internist.

My insurance only covers prescription drugs NOT the OTC drugs. I now spend a fortune on allergy meds that used to be prescribed and covered by insurance. I suspect insurance companies are behind this move to shift more costs to us.

Provided the user can take the medication per the doctor's instructions, I see no problem making more pharmaceuticals available OTC. Especially if it would take more than a handful to induce deleterious effects.

Many modern day physicians can be difficult to get appointments scheduled. Sometimes the delays can run into months; most inconvenient. Unless the drug in question is something like a statin where liver enzymes must be monitored, I see no problem going OTC.

An added bonus might be price. It would be cheaper to let the machine at the production plant count the tablets than the pharmacist

I do not take any medication unless absolutely necessary. I cannot say the same for most people. I think no medication should be available without a prescription including the most benign, like aspirin or Advil. The reason I believe this is because the average individual is an idiot and will only inadvertently over medicate.

On the other hand why not make everything available off the shelf potentially leading to many idiots accidentally killing themselves and thereby improving the gene pool.

No, prefer to get drugs by prescription so that my medical insurance pays.

What I would like to see freed up is taking away the “controlled status “ of many drugs.

The controls just cause a more frequent need for new prescriptions . Without the controls more refills could be added.

Also, less frequent visits to the doctor would happen.

As doctors’ visits require expensive copayments, this unnecessary expense could be reduced or eliminated.

People who take controlled medications over a long period of time know their bodies well and don’t need this kind of oversight.

Thank you! Helen Weisman

What is the goal with this proposal? Greater accessibility to a drug? Is that an issue? Or a means to bypass trained medical care and guidance? That doesn’t seem to be a benefit. The loss of payment by insurance if something is otc is very concerning.

I've traveled in many countries where medications are available without a prescription, allowing me to replenish my lost meds. This is an advantage. Over the counter meds would bypass the pharmacist's labor charge for processing the medications. I used to tell my patients to get generic glaucoma drops in Mexico at a tenth the price of US prescription prices.

Selection of which meds can be prescription free needs to be carefully thought out. Serious side effects may occur, the risks of which would be unknown to a lay consumer self-prescribing. Widespread use of antibiotics would certainly accelerate resistance by bacteria.

Instructions are provided. Nothing wrong with continuing to make it easier to access medicine.

Compliance is low even with a physician's office oversight so over the counter drugs could reduce oversight that results in little compliance or abuse of the drug.

The legal community would love it.

What do you think of the idea?

I'd put it between taking down all speed limits and letting people chose what speed is safe for them, and putting screen doors in submarines so that the sailors can watch the fish.