"A real bluff". Thus the national coordination of parapharmacies comments on the list of 220 medicines which, leaving category C, can be sold in parapharmacies without a prescription, the so-called delisting just signed by the Minister of Health Renato Balduzzi. According to the coordination that brings together the over 4,000 existing parapharmacies in Italy, in fact, the Minister of Health, in the context of the medicines affected by the provision (with repeatable prescription), "could have courageously removed the prescription requirement from a much higher and much more significant number of medicines, if only to keep the commitments undertaken by the Government after the reverse on the Salva Italia decree".
According to the law, in fact, the delisting could be carried out within class C drugs that were not "drugs, injectables, medicines of the endocrine system and medicines which are expected to be sold upon presentation of a medical prescription to be renewed each time".
" The truth is that with this delisting", the Parapharmacies specify, "widely used products (antivirals, antifungals, anti-allergic and anti-inflammatory eye drops) have been brought to parapharmacies, which are already largely available to us. Assessments that we would have gladly presented to the minister if he would only have been kind enough to accept our repeated requests for a meeting. For all these reasons", conclude the parapharmacies, "we confirm to the Minister of Health our firm intention to take all useful initiatives to restore question this decision".
20 April 2012 – ISSUE 72 – YEAR 6 – Margherita Lopes – PharmaKronos
