Dear Mr Haslam,
The obesity public health crisis is both widespread and well documented. This past June, the American Medical Association deemed obesity as a disease state of its own. Obesity and chronic disease are the most common causes of death and disability in Ohio with an economic impact of approximately $56.8 billion per year. According to newly released CDC data, the number of obese adults has grown dramatically in Ohio over the past 15 years from 16.1% in 1995, to 29.6% in 2011.
Given the severity of this epidemic, I urge you to expedite the review and revision of Ohio’s current, restrictive regulations around the use of controlled substances that are indicated for long-term, chronic treatment of obesity. Now that the FDA has approved new medicines for chronic, long-term weight management, it is imperative that these regulations and laws are reviewed and updated to ensure that healthcare providers in Ohio have access to all available tools to help their obese patients to lose weight. For patients to realize the full benefit of these medicines, healthcare providers must be able to write prescriptions for obesity drugs in the manner for which they are approved and indicated, not limited by regulations that are not up-to-date with modern medicine and violate the FDA edict.
The requirement for face to face visits every 30 days indefinitely is a preposterous rule given:
1) That the FDA has accepted these medications as chronic therapy.
2) This rule is not applied to any other schedule IV agents in Ohio.
3) The increased cost to the healthcare system and the patients is unjustified.
4) Makes it clear that the decisions being made at the State Medical Board are not based on facts, medical science or reason.
As a provider, I am very comfortable and confident in prescribing these new medications, Qsymia and Belvique (with more to follow), to my patients, and believe their potential risk for abuse and diversion to be very low while their potential benefit to my patients to be quite promising. By removing dated and unnecessary regulatory barriers we would be better able to help individual patients to improve their health, reduce the enormous financial burden, and begin to reverse the epidemic of obesity in our state. To do otherwise sends a clear message that the Ohio State Medical Board serves neither the medical community nor our patients.
As a board certified Endocrinologist, being an expert in the treatment of obesity is part of my specialty. As a former President of the Ohio River Regional Chapter of AACE as well as the Ohio Chapter of the ADA, my colleagues and I will not tolerate this blatant prejudice against obese individuals and violation of FDA regulations.
Elena A Christofides, MD, FACE