Pharmacists to quit working

If pharmacists decide they can't dispense prescribed medications because if violates their consciences, then what do we need them for??

This from Steve Gilliard

By Peggy Peck, Senior Editor, MedPage Today
June 20, 2005

CHICAGO, June 20-The American Medical Association's policy-making body voted today to press for state laws that would allow physicians to dispense medications when there is no nearby pharmacist willing to dispense the prescribed drugs.

The new AMA policy is an attempt to overcome what doctors say is a stampede of pharmacists who say they cannot in good conscience dispense certain medications. The issue of conscientious refusal was first raised when some pharmacists refused to fill prescriptions for the emergency contraception pill, called Plan B. Additionally some pharmacists refused to fill prescriptions for birth control pills.

But AMA delegates say the conscience-based refusals have now spread to psychotropic drugs and pain medications. The new AMA policy states that doctors should be allowed to dispense medications when there is no "willing pharmacist available within a 30 mile radius." That change would require change in state laws regulating both doctors and pharmacists.

The AMA House of Delegates' action went beyond initiatives that had been discussed at reference committee hearings.The doctors say that many pharmacists compound their refusal to fill prescriptions by not returning the unfilled prescriptions to patients, thereby stymieing efforts to turn to other pharmacists.

"It's not just contraceptives," said Mary Frank, M.D., a family physician from Mill Valley, Calif., during a discussion of the issue. "It's pain medications and psychotropics. And not only are the patients not getting prescriptions filled, but pharmacists are refusing to return the prescriptions and they are lecturing the patients about the drugs."

If the pharmacists are going to decide whether they WANT to dispense medications prescribed by licensed physicians, what do we need pharmacists for? We can just let the physicians prescribe the medications themselves.

Then the conscience-stricken ass-holes pharmacists can go find jobs that don't impinge on their tender little consciences. Nor will they screw up other people's lives.