Author: Carlos Alberto Sardenberg

Source: The State of S. Paulo - São Paulo / SP - NEWS - 07/06/2010

Before they object, I note: it is clear that there will be no absolute response such as "eliminate the state" or "suppress freedoms". But in the balance sheet, in Brazil, it leans more towards a supposed protection of the State, which seems more authoritarian.

 

So much so that certain issues do not even appear in the political debate. For example: what is better, we pay more taxes for the government to provide the public school or pay less tax and, with more money in our pockets, choose a private school? Pay tax to the public health service or keep more money to pay for the private health plan?

 

Notice how it appears in people's daily lives. Medicines are divided into two major groups, those that need a prescription and those that do not, these being over-the-counter in pharmacies. Free to a certain extent, because the National Health Surveillance Agency, Anvisa, tries to impose the rule by which exempt medicines cannot be exposed on the shelves, within the reach of the consumer. Instead, they should be kept behind the counters, so that the citizen has to ask the clerk for them.

 

Anvisa lowered the resolution with this rule, but associations and pharmacy chains contest it in court.

 

In addition, some state legislatures have passed laws regulating retail in pharmacies and stipulating that exempt medications may, indeed, remain on the shelves, being purchased directly by consumers. Get it and pay at the cashier.

 

The situation, therefore, is undefined in the courts and the legislature. But the Federal Pharmacy Council, an entity of pharmacists, which supports Anvisa's resolution, intends to solve the story with another maneuver. Prepares a resolution stating that all non-prescription drugs can only be sold with a pharmaceutical prescription.

 

It would work like this: the person enters the pharmacy in search of a headache pill; it is then attended by a pharmacist who will make a service form and then prescribe the pill the customer has requested. Or another, if it deems more appropriate. In that case, if the person does not want to, look for another pharmacy and another pharmacist.

 

Therefore, there will be a kind of mandatory consultation, with the pharmacist, for the purchase of any medicine, however simple it may be. All of this would be determined by a resolution of the Federal Pharmacy Council.

 

Anvisa supports this proposal from the council, as it is a way to smuggle and expand that other resolution. By Anvisa's rule, the consumer needs to ask the clerk for the medicine. For the advice, the consumer will need to make a form and obtain the prescription from the pharmacist, even for a medicine that he, the consumer, chose and that he normally uses.

 

It is hard to imagine another way to burn consumers' patience. It is also difficult to imagine another means of disrupting and making a trade that works relatively well. The argument of Anvisa and the council maintains that the rules are intended to prevent the misuse of non-prescription drugs and, thus, to prevent adverse reactions and / or drug interactions.

 

But this type of problem is not exactly a national calamity, nor is it a serious concern. There is no news that the thing in Brazil is out of control.

 

What happens more is a problem with the misuse of drugs, say, more dangerous, precisely those that need a prescription - and that are sold without a prescription. There is the sale of contraband from Paraguay, for example, which is a matter for the police. But many legally established pharmacies also sell without a prescription and then buy prescriptions from doctors.

 

Now, instead of addressing this issue, Anvisa and the Pharmacy Council want to introduce another prescription and another form.

 

The argument that the Brazilian does not know how to buy medicine is not justified. The numbers do not indicate excessive use of free drugs, not least because people do not have enough money to buy a new medicine just to try the novelty.

 

In fact, Anvisa's people have an authoritarian view and a bias against private pharmaceutical trade. He understands that the authorities know better what is good for people. These would need to be protected in order not to fall victim to unscrupulous capitalists. (But who will protect them, for example, from a pharmacist who refuses to sell a drug?)

 

The board is obviously concerned with securing more jobs for pharmacists. Result: if all this works, the cost of operating pharmacies will rise.

 

That is, under the pretext of protecting people, they will achieve two things: increase the price of medicines and take away the freedom of the citizen to buy a simple pill for headache.