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- Written by: Elizabeth Larson
Assembly Bill 690 will increase access to pharmacy care in vulnerable and rural areas of California, by authorizing the use of telepharmacy in medically underserved areas and streamlining the process for pharmacies to reopen after a natural disaster.
The bill contains an urgency clause, which means its provisions go into effect immediately.
“People living in pharmacy-deprived areas, whether rural or urban, face many barriers to obtaining comprehensive medical care,” said Aguiar-Curry. “Telepharmacy is a proven model to provide enhanced care that is both safe and effective.”
In 2017, Aguiar-Curry authored AB 401, which legalized the use of telepharmacy technology in California for the first time.
However, although this law was passed two years ago, the Board of Pharmacy had as yet been unable to implement the law.
Therefore, telepharmacy still has not been used in the state. AB 690 addresses this delay by codifying the qualifications required for a pharmacy technician to work in a remote dispensing pharmacy.
By changing the law rather than waiting for the regulatory process, perhaps years, the use of telepharmacy in California can begin immediately.
According to Aguiar-Curry, “My constituents in small towns and rural communities sometimes face real hardship needing to access pharmacies many miles away. This telepharmacy law will provide access to opportunities for better patient education, make it easier for patients to follow schedules for their medications, and result in better health for Californians.”
The second piece of AB 690 streamlines the process for a pharmacy that is destroyed or damaged in a natural disaster to relocate and reopen.
Currently, pharmacists whose businesses are destroyed or damaged during a disaster are required to completely re-apply for a pharmacy license in order to reopen their businesses, as if the pharmacy were brand new.
AB 690 would allow for these impacted pharmacies to quickly relocate and reopen following an emergency.
This is of critical importance, so that patients can have continuity in their pharmacy care and independent pharmacists can get their businesses back up and running.
“During the Camp Fire in 2018, five pharmacies were closed due to significant fire damage. I deeply appreciate the Board of Pharmacy, and pharmacy employee groups and other stakeholders for working with me to allow a speedier recovery of pharmacy services for victims of wildfire and other disasters. We’ve learned a lot over the past several years that instructed us all on how to develop solid policy,” said Aguiar-Curry. “I am excited that Governor Newsom recognizes the importance of access to pharmacy care for California’s smaller communities, and the added value that telepharmacy can provide to Californians with health and mobility challenges.”
Aguiar-Curry represents the Fourth Assembly District, which includes all of Lake and Napa counties, parts of Colusa, Solano and Sonoma counties, and all of Yolo County except West Sacramento.
- Details
- Written by: Elizabeth Larson
Getting vaccinated is the best way to avoid getting the flu. Anyone 6 months of age or older is encouraged to get a flu vaccine.
Being careful to use good hygiene is another way to protect yourself and those around you. If you cough or sneeze, cover your nose and mouth with a tissue or the crook of your arm, instead of your hands.
Because a virus can easily be passed from your hands to the things you touch, wash your hands often and use an alcohol-based hand sanitizer when soap and water aren’t available.
Try not to touch your face with your hands, as viruses can enter your system through the membranes of your eyes, nose and mouth.
Protect yourself by avoiding close contact with anyone who is sick.
Choosing a healthy lifestyle can also help to keep you well. Getting enough sleep, eating nutritious foods, drinking plenty of water, and staying physically active can help to maintain a healthy immune system.
The symptoms of the flu include a temperature of over 100 degrees F, combined with a cough, sore throat, body aches, headache, and a lack of energy. If you are ill, stay home to keep from infecting others.
Lake County Public Health is offering seasonal flu vaccines for $2.
Scheduled clinics for the seasonal flu vaccines are as follows while supplies last:
– Saturday, Oct. 12, 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.: Heroes of Health and Safety Fair, Lake County Fairgrounds, 401 Martin St. in Lakeport. Flu shots are free at this event.
Lake County Public Health will be offering flu vaccines for $2 at the Public Health Division, 922 Bevins Court in Lakeport. Appointments are required. Please call 707-263-1090 or 800-794-9291 to schedule.
– Tuesday, Oct. 15, 1:30 to 4 p.m.
– Thursday, Oct. 17, 1:30 to 4 p.m.
– Tuesday, Oct. 22, 9 to 11:30 a.m. and 1:30 to 4 p.m.
– Thursday, Oct. 24, 1:30 to 4 p.m.
– Tuesday, Oct. 29, 9 to 11:30 a.m. and 1:30 to 4 p.m.
– Thursday, Oct. 31, 1:30 to 4 p.m.
Flu vaccinations are also available in a variety of locations, such as your primary care provider and local pharmacies.
Together, we can help to decrease the spread of influenza in our community. Get vaccinated today.
The Lake County Public Health Division wishes you all a healthy and happy fall and winter season.
Please call 1-800-794-9291 or 707-263-1090 with questions or concerns.
- Details
- Written by: Elizabeth Larson
Sponsored by the attorney general, the new law combats illegal, secretive deals between pharmaceutical companies in which one drug company pays its competitor to delay the competitor’s research, production or sale of a competing version of its drug.
These collusive agreements, known as “pay-for-delay” agreements, stifle competition and hike the price patients pay for prescription medicines. AB 824 becomes the first state law in the nation to tackle pay-for-delay agreements.
“Intentionally restraining competition to inflate drug profits is illegal. Doing so when the life or well-being of our loved ones may lie in the balance is immoral,” said Attorney General Becerra. The enactment of AB 824 signals progress for Californians who have been at the mercy of drug companies and their sky-high pricing for prescription medicines. I applaud Assemblymember Wood and Governor Newsom for taking us a step closer to holding the pharmaceutical industry’s feet to the fire and deterring these collusive, illegal agreements.”
“This self-interested practice of pay-for-delay results in a loss for patients who deserve access to less expensive drugs and for all of us who end up paying more for health care and, in turn, health care premiums,” said Assemblymember Jim Wood. “Affordability is a huge issue in health care, and we should be doing everything possible to contain costs.”
Pay-for-delay agreements are the product of lawsuits between a branded pharmaceutical company and a generic. In these cases, the branded company sues the generic for alleged patent infringement. The companies then settle the case out of court in a confidential agreement.
As part of the agreement, the branded pharmaceutical company pays the generic company to keep its generic pharmaceutical off the market for a period of time.
During this time, the branded pharmaceutical maker continues to charge consumers monopolistic, high prices for life-saving medications.
These pay-for-delay arrangements are kept secret from the public through out-of-court settlements.
A study published by the Federal Trade Commission in 2010 concluded that pay-for-delay agreements increase the cost of prescription drugs for consumers by at least $3.5 billion a year.
The new law, set to go into effect on Jan. 1, 2020, would presume these agreements are anti-competitive and delay the entry of the generic drug into the marketplace.
It would also limit the ability of drug companies to use attorney-client and common-interest legal privileges to withhold relevant evidence regarding the collusive agreements.
AB 824 establishes a stronger platform to investigate and prosecute these illegal and harmful drug pricing practices.
- Details
- Written by: Kara Manke
“[Women] talked about every day walking out of their houses and putting on their ‘armor’ in anticipation of experiencing racial discrimination,” said Amani M. Allen, associate professor of community health sciences and epidemiology at the University of California, Berkeley, describing focus groups she led with African American women in the San Francisco Bay Area.
“What they were really describing was this idea of being strong black women and feeling the need to prepare for the racial discrimination they expect on a daily basis; and that preparation and anticipation adds to their overall stress burden,” Allen said.
Allen is lead author of a new study that explores whether different facets of being a strong black woman, which researchers sometimes refer to as “superwoman schema,” ultimately protect women from the negative health impacts of racial discrimination — or create further harm.
The new study revealed that, in the face of high levels of racial discrimination, some aspects of the superwoman persona, including feeling an obligation to present an image of strength and to suppress one’s emotions, seemed to be protective of health, diminishing the negative health effects of chronic racial discrimination.
But others facets of the persona, such as having an intense drive to succeed and feeling an obligation to help others, seemed to be detrimental to health, further exacerbating the deleterious health effects of the chronic stress associated with racial discrimination.
“African American women describe racial discrimination as a persistent and significant stressor, and we know from prior research that stress impacts health,” Allen said. “What we need to figure out is how to mitigate those risks. For those aspects of superwoman schema that worsen the negative health effects associated with racial discrimination, how do we lessen those risks? And for those factors that are more protective, how do we leverage them to inform interventions designed to promote health and well-being for African American women?”
“The superwoman schema also reflects gendered racial socialization that African American women receive early in life and throughout their life course,” said Yijie Wang, assistant professor in the Department of Human Development and Family Studies at Michigan State University and co-author of the paper. “By identifying the protective versus risky dimensions, we also hope to figure out the type of messages that should be conveyed to African American women and girls.”
The strong black superwoman
Allen and her collaborators conducted their research as part of the African American Women’s Heart and Health Study, a cross-sectional study that Allen launched in 2012 to examine the links between social and environmental stressors and health among 208 self-identified African American women living in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Previous results from the study had revealed a direct link between racial discrimination and chronic disease risk, adding to the growing body of literature that shows that the experience of racial discrimination alone can be detrimental to one’s health.
Allen says her interest in superwoman schema was inspired by focus groups she conducted with African American women, in which they revealed that they often acted the part of the strong black woman as a way to cope with the persistent stress of racial discrimination in their lives.
“I remember them talking about being strong black women and describing it both as a kind of armor, but also potentially as a liability,” Allen said. “For example, what does it mean to continue to have an intense motivation to succeed, while you're also experiencing barriers to achieving that success? So, I wanted to know, is being a strong black woman helpful, or harmful, for health?”
To design the study, she teamed up with researchers across the country who were also interested in this phenomenon, including Cheryl L. Woods-Giscombe, a professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s School of Nursing. She had developed a framework called the “superwoman schema” to describe the different dimensions of the strong black woman persona.
The superwoman schema includes five elements: feeling an obligation to present an image of strength, feeling an obligation to suppress emotions, resistance to being vulnerable, a drive to succeed despite limited resources and feeling an obligation to help others.
In the study, participants were asked to rate their experience of racial discrimination in different contexts, including finding housing, finding employment, at work, at school, getting credit for a bank loan or mortgage and in health care settings. They also rated to what extent they identified with different aspects of the superwoman schema.
Each participant also received a physical exam, with researchers recording their height, weight, blood pressure, blood sugar and measures of inflammation and other health indicators. These health indicators were combined into a measure of ‘allostatic load’ that reflected the level of chronic stress in the body. Higher levels of allostatic load are associated with greater risk for chronic illnesses like cardiovascular disease and diabetes, and even for mortality.
The researchers then analyzed the data for links between racial discrimination, the different aspects of superwoman schema and allostatic load.
Some surprising relationships emerged, Allen said. For example, the study found that women who reported suppressing emotions had lower levels of allostatic load, or less stress, in their bodies. This contradicts psychological studies, which commonly show that suppressing emotions, rather than openly expressing them, can increase stress and be detrimental to health.
Allen states, “Although contradictory to studies showing that emotion suppression is bad for health, this finding makes sense, in light of research showing that the most common emotional reaction to discrimination is anger, and anger is bad for health.”
The study findings add to a growing body of research demonstrating how the stress associated with racial discrimination becomes biologically embedded, Allen said.
“The problem is not that women need to learn to cope better with racial discrimination,” Allen said. “The problem is racial discrimination itself and the need for interventions intended to address racial discrimination as experienced in the workplace, by police and in society at large.”
Co-authors of the paper include David H. Chae of Auburn University; Melisa M. Price and Leticia Marquez-Magana of UC San Francisco; Wizdom Powell of UConn Health; Teneka C. Steed of the University of North Carolina, Greensboro; Angela Rose Black of the University of Wisconsin-Madison; Firdaus S. Dhabhar of the University of Maine and Cheryl L. Woods-Giscombe of the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.
This work was supported by the UC Berkeley Hellman Fund, UC Berkeley Population Center, UC Berkeley Research Bridging Grant, UC Berkeley Experimental Social Science Laboratory, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health and Society Scholars Program (UCB site), UC Center for New Racial Studies, UC Berkeley Institute for the Study of Societal Issues, National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD) grant P60MD006902, National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS) grant UL1GM118985, National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) grant K01DA032611, National Institute on Aging (NIA) grant K01AG041787, National Institute on Nursing Research grant T32 NR007091, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration Minority Fellowship Program at the American Nurses Association, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Nurse Faculty Scholars Program and Josiah Macy Jr. Foundation Faculty Scholars Program.
Kara Manke writes for the UC Berkeley News Center.