How A Small Inhaler Change Helped To Improve The Ozone Layer October 27, 2010 at 9:16 pm
It’s taken a while, but the millions of patients using propelled inhalers have finally, and reluctantly made the switch from CFC- propelled inhalers to HFA-propelled inhalers.
The change officially took place December 31 of last year. The change was primarily for environmental reasons. The older CFC inhalers use chlorofluorocarbon which has been shown to be one of the culprits in depleting the ozone in the atmosphere. What happens is that when these inhalers are used, when the person exhales, he exhales the CFC also. When the CFC hits the atmosphere, ultraviolet light breaks them down. This is what causes the ozone to be depleted.
The United States is one of the last of the major industrialized nations to implement the change. Countries such as Canada, Europe, and Japan had all previously made the change.
Americans use drugs every year for symptoms as varied as dog allergies, pollen allergy symptoms, and sulfa drug allergy. Even though stores stopped selling the older inhalers at the end of 2008, many patients undoubtedly are still using some of the older ones that they purchased prior to this year.
According to the FDA, HFA, or hydrofluoroalkane, is much a much friendlier substance to the environment than CFC.
For users of the new HFA inhalers, the biggest difference that they have noticed is that the inhaler tends to get clogged more frequently whereas with the older inhalers, this was not much of a problem. The other change, from a patient standpoint, is that the taste is a bit different.
It might seem that the tiny amount of propellant in each inhaler wouldn’t make a big difference. But there are million of these inhalers in use around the world each year. Because of this, the change is expected to significantly decrease the amount of harm done to the environment.
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