Meeting Public Comments

Wallace Boeve []

This would allow pharmacists to provide "selfadministered hormonal contraceptives" without a prescription or a medical evaluation. Contraceptives are not without risk and a patient seeing a provider who has the full knowledge of the patient's history is important prior to prescribing contraceptives and other medications. Pharmacists have excellent training, and I utilize their knowledge in many situations, but I believe providers and pharmacists roles are very distinct. This bill should not pass.

Tim Millea, M.D. []

Thank you for the opportunity to comment and to express my strong opposition to this bill. Hormonal contraceptives have significant risks and adverse effects that are welldocumented in the medical literature, including blood clots, heart attack, stroke, and breast and cervical cancer. Providing these drugs to women without a preliminary medical evaluation or a prescription is dangerous and disrespectful to women. In the "twentyseven months" after initial provision of the drugs that would then require a medical evaluation, complications such as these could well occur. Those women will then not have a physician with whom to consult in an emergent situation.If the intent of this bill is to increase convenience for women seeking help, you must reconsider. The potential harms that will occur will more than offset the intent. I and many others look forward to your subcommittee's unfavorable review of this illadvised bill.

Anthony Coppola []

As a practicing family physician for the last 18 years, I would highly advise you to discourage the passage of this proposal. I can promise you this will be bad for patient care, and will increase harms to people beyond any convenience you are hoping to provide them. This further removes primary care physicians like myself from patient care, taking away the opportunity to have robust informed consent discussions about the serious risks of these medicines like blood clots, heart attacks, strokes and cancer. I have seen these complications first hand in patients on these medications. It will increase the amount of casual sexual encounters, thus exacerbating problems like the currently rising syphilis numbers in our state. These are only a couple of many concerns. Please do what you can to oppose a change like this.

Angela Baalmann []

Expansion of pharmacist services to provide hormonal contraception is a perceived good, but not an actual good. While pharmacists are important clinicians who can expand access to services either requested or needed by patients, the pursuit of pharmacist services related to hormonal contraception through this bill is problematic for several reasons. First, it promotes the use of hormonal medications primarily for the purposes of contraception. Contraception is not a medical need, but rather an intervention pursued for a particular lifestyle. Medications should be primarily used for curing or mitigating disease, and use of hormonal medications for diseases such as menorrhagia, polycystic ovary syndrome, or endometriosis would be more appropriate. As written, this bill does not encourage use of hormonal medications for curing or mitigating of disease. Secondly, it promotes the widespread use of medications which have an abortifacient nature. Abortion is contrary to the nature of sound medicine, and therefore the nature of sound medication use. Lastly, the bill does not adequately address all needs that a patient seeking hormonal contraception may have in terms of their reproductive health. Education on fertility, healthy sexual behaviors, and alternative means of avoiding pregnancy are not mandated for pharmacists to provide. All of these services are essential for a comprehensive, holistic approach to reproductive health, which our laws should promote.