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Retailers Oppose Cold Medicine Prescriptions

4.3.16– Greg Bishop, Alton Daily News

Battling pressure in your sinuses shouldn’t mean putting more pressure on your family doctor to write prescriptions for cold and sinus medicine with pseudoephedrine, according to the Illinois Retail Merchants Association.

Rob Karr with the Retail Merchants Association said in an effort to battle the illegal production of methamphetamine, there are already provisions to keep people from getting too much product, including putting the medicine behind the pharmacy counter.

“You have to go show an ID, you have to sign for it and there’s specific limits on what you can buy, so there’s already hurdles that consumers have to cross to get this cold and allergy medicine,” Karr said.

Oregon and Mississippi have laws requiring a doctor’s prescription for consumers to get pseudoephedrine and Karr said there have been similar unsuccessful attempts in Illinois.

Requiring a prescription from a doctor would put not only more burden and cost on the consumer seeking relief, but also on doctors, Karr said.

“The kind of doctors that you would likely be impacting here, which are general practice or family physicians, I haven’t met one that thinks they’re underworked,” Karr said. “This would certainly increase the flow of work to their office.”

Read more here.