The FDA discourages pharmacists from making their own versions of common over-the-counter treatments. StateImpact’s Catherine Sweeney reports one Oklahoma lawmaker is pushing back and trying to ensure the practice is protected.
The practice is called compounding. Before major pharmaceutical companies rose to prominence in the early 20th century, that was how most people got medicine.
Sen. Rob Standridge, a former pharmacist, says compounding those over-the-counter treatments is one of the most important parts of the job.
"I would flavor cough syrups and other medications over-the-counter for babies. They would not take the, you know, the bad tasting stuff, " said Standridge.
He filed Senate Bill 827 in an effort to protect the practice in Oklahoma.
The FDA issued a guidance in 2018 that urges pharmacists not to make copies of existing drugs for a few reasons — one being that it could discourage pharmaceutical companies from creating inexpensive generic versions.
The guidance isn’t enforceable, but Standridge says it has made some pharmacists uneasy, and the bill is designed to give them some relief. The measure passed out of the Senate and is waiting for a House committee hearing.
Senate Republicans are celebrating the advancement of bills that would fund Oklahoma’s education system at historic levels and get closer to achieving long-held, so-called “school choice” goals.
Republican House Speaker Charles McCall will not be considering the Senate’s amended versions of House bills to give public ed more than $500 million in new funding and create a voucher-like tax credit program to subsidize private and homeschool costs. Earlier in the session, McCall warned if the Senate amended his package, he would kill it.
The Senate amendments feature bigger teacher pay raises and expand them to support staff. The amendments would also remove a funding limit that kept larger schools from receiving proportionate funding, and add an income cap on the tax credit program.
After the Senate passed the bills off the Floor, there was hope Speaker McCall might be willing to budge on his ultimatum, but StateImpact verified with a spokesperson for the House Republican Caucus that while McCall is open to conversations about teacher raises and other Senate education bills, the two amended funding bills QUOTE “don’t have a chance” in the House.
U.S. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg visited Oklahoma City Thursday. The visit was part of the Biden Administration’s “Investing in America” tour.
Secretary Buttigieg met with Gov. Kevin Stitt and Oklahoma City Mayor David Holt at the Mike Monroney Aeronautical Center on Thursday to try out some air traffic control training simulators.
He later spoke with teachers, students, and staff at the Federal Aviation Administration Academy about how funding from 2021’s Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act will be used to improve airfield safety and the future of aviation careers.
"We have a once-in-a-lifetime investment from President Biden’s leadership plus an explosion of new technological possibilities creating all this potential," Buttigieg said.
This follows the FAA’s Safety Summit that addressed the uptick in the number of recent incidents, from near misses between aircraft to unruly passengers.
The Environmental Protection Agency is proposing a a new Superfund site at Oklahoma’s Fansteel Metals, Inc. KOSU/OPMX’s Graycen Wheeler has the details.
The 105-acre site is in Muskogee on Cherokee Nation land. After more than thirty years of processing uranium ore, the facility contains radioactive and toxic materials that could pose a threat to Muskogee’s groundwater and the Arkansas River.
In January, Gov. Kevin Stitt wrote a letter to the EPA, requesting a Superfund designation for Fansteel. Existing federal funds for containing the waste are dwindling, but Superfunds receive long-term money and support for cleanup.
On Wednesday, the EPA announced it was proposing the Fansteel facility be listed as a Superfund site, along with four facilities in other states. The EPA credits the Biden Administration’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law with providing $3.5 billion to the Superfund program, making it possible to clean up these new sites.
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