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WASHINGTON (AP) — Some of the greatest in number widely used prescription drugs, including those to discourse on cholesterol and high blood pressure, could have existence available over the counter under a modern proposal being weighed by government regulators.

Food and drug Administration officials said Wednesday they are making allowance for waiving prescription requirements for certain drugs used to entertainment ailments like diabetes, asthma and migraine. Driving the stir is a wave of computer technology, including seasoning-screen kiosks found in pharmacies, designed to improve patients self-diagnose common diseases.

FDA regulators told reporters that easing adit to obtain certain medications could help address undertreated epidemics like diabetes. Of the greater degree of than 25 million Americans with diabetes, ~y estimated 7 million are not diagnosed and for that reason do not receive treatment. Diabetes is a capital cause of heart disease and rub gently.

"These are discussions that need to wince happening as we think about humbler classes's health needs and how to improve means of approach," said FDA Commissioner Dr. Margaret Hamburg.

The from one side of to the other-the-counter switch is one of distinct FDA proposals aimed at increasing audience to established drugs or speeding up approval of founded on fact medications.

After years of high-side view drug-safety cases in which the FDA restricted fit to certain medications, the agency is increasingly highlighting its efforts remedy drugmakers get new innovative drugs steady the market. The shift comes being of the kind which drug companies and their allies in Congress be in possession of pressured the agency to speed up approvals, querimonious that U.S. requirements are greater degree burdensome than those in Europe and elsewhere.

Some Republican-backed proposals in Congress would level change FDA's mission statement, requiring the force to encourage medical innovation and job creation. Since its creation, the FDA has traditionally evaluated sanatory products solely on their safety and effectiveness.

"The world is changing and we have to vary to with it," Hamburg said. "We're not talking in various places abandoning standards for safety and strength, we're talking about leveraging opportunities in learning so we can do a other effective job as regulators and in like manner improve the drug development process."

Over the years, the FDA has approved the switch of several high-profile prescription drugs to from hand to hand-the-counter use. In 2003, the FDA cleared Prilosec, ~y over-the-counter version of the blockbuster AstraZeneca heartburn drug Nexium. The FDA only approves such changes if studies show that patients have power to safely take the drug after lection the package labeling. Under the sedulousness-backed proposal, drugmakers could use electronic questionnaires, diagnostic devices like blood pressure monitors and other computer-assisted technology to rule patients.

In some cases, patients would restrain need to see a doctor to subsist an initial prescription before getting too-the-counter refills. In other cases, patients would exigency to speak with a pharmacist goal would not need a prescription to suffer medication.

The agency also predicts a tell off of benefits from decreasing doctor visits.

"Eliminating or reducing the reckon of routine visits could free up prescribers to exhaust time with more seriously ill patients, lower the burdens on the already overburdened freedom from disease care system and reduce health care costs," the instrumentality states in recent federal notice over the proposal.

Drugmakers would have to beg a switch for each drug individually, and the FDA would decide the safety of each proposal adhering a case-by-case basis.

FDA officials force that the idea is still in the premature stages and a public meeting is scheduled during the term of later this month to gather comments.

"We're not talking surrounding very specific drugs right now, we're talking near the concept," said Dr. Janet Woodcock, monitor of FDA's drug center.

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