The FDA had this under Docket No. 2007N-0262 and RIN number 0910-AF92 -back in Nov 2007

Division of Dockets Management (HFA-305), Food and Drug
Administration, 5630 Fishers Lane, rm. 1061, Rockville, MD 20852

Supposedly, there is an annual allotment of CFC for all CFC inhalers, this is metered out quadr or bi-annually-and that the demand for inhalers exceeds this alotted supply -hence periodic shortages of Primatene Mist and its rebadges.

If you really want to get pissed off, go to the FDA Archives online and read the original documents and exchanges between doctors and so called experts when this decision was first made a few years ago. THEN… check out each participant. Note that many advocates of withdrawing Primatene were paid consultants to Glaxo and others big pharma… talk about conflict of interest!!!!

This is about big pharma using ecological issues to fleece and even endanger asthma sufferers.

There is only one way to deal with this, raise hell with your representatives and congressmen, in person if necessary. I’ve been on this crusade since 2007. I informed mine a class type lawsuit was assured if this insanity moved forward.

Primatene Mist was given a reprieve from 2009 -to 2011.

Also…a bunch of BULL is floating around about the safety of PM. Any drug can impose a problem for specific unlucky individuals, but you must read this WebMD article:

http://tinyurl.com/6mv45j

Also see:
https://www.saveCFCinhalers.org

a volcano does more to the precious atmosphere than men can impose on it.

diesel vehicles, gas motors, etc create more air pollution than a little inhaler.

a inhaler goes into your lungs, not the precious atmosphere. how much damage is it actually doing to others?

answer…none.

Expected Ban on Primatene Mist Raises Some Concerns
Published: May 12, 2006

The situation looked dire. While Jay Kraeszig of Zionsville, Ind., was on vacation in Florida a few years ago, he had a severe asthma attack and realized he had left his albuterol inhaler in his hotel room.

Matthew Staver for The New York Times

Off the Shelf Primatene Mist, an asthma inhaler available without a prescription, could be removed from shelves because it uses an ozone-depleting propellant.

“He was turning gray,” his wife, Mary D. Kraeszig, recalled in an interview. “Probably another couple of minutes and he wouldn’t have been conscious.”

Fortunately, she said, there was a Wal-Mart nearby. She dashed in and bought Primatene Mist, an asthma inhaler available without a prescription. It relieved the attack in minutes.

But Primatene Mist, on the market for about 40 years, could be the next asthma inhaler banned because it uses a propellant harmful to the earth’s ozone layer.

An advisory committee of the Food and Drug Administration decided by a vote of 11 to 7 in January that the product, which contains the drug epinephrine, is not medically essential and therefore should not be exempt from a global treaty mandating the elimination of ozone-destroying products.

But people like Ms. Kraeszig say that Primatene, the only over-the-counter method of quelling an asthma attack, is a vital stopgap for people caught without their prescription albuterol inhalers. And some advocates for minority groups and the poor say that Primatene is often the only remedy available to those who do not see doctors and cannot afford or otherwise obtain prescription drugs.

“These inhalers are all that, in many cases, stand between them, as an asthmatic, and the emergency room or worse,” Manuel Mirabal, president of the National Puerto Rican Coalition, testified at the January F.D.A. meeting.

The drug maker Wyeth, which sold $43 million of Primatene Mist last year, estimates that two million to three million people use the product — two-thirds of them as a backup for albuterol and the other third as their sole medication. Armstrong Pharmaceuticals, which makes the product for Wyeth, also makes epinephrine inhalers sold as store brands, and those, too, would be removed from the market. Armstrong is a unit of Amphastar Pharmaceuticals.

Wyeth said it had been unable so far, after years of effort, to develop an epinephrine inhaler that would be effective and acceptable to consumers but would use a propellant that does not harm the ozone layer.

Wyeth, which is now working jointly with Armstrong, urged the F.D.A. to keep Primatene on the market until an alternative is ready, which it estimated would be around 2011.

But some of the physicians on the F.D.A. advisory committee had little sympathy. They said that despite Primatene’s long history of use, there was little evidence of the drug’s safety and effectiveness. Epinephrine is a synthetic version of the human hormone adrenaline.

These doctors said Primatene could even harm patients because of side effects or because users might forgo better treatments. Removing it from the market, they said, could be an opportunity to switch asthma patients to better medications.

“It is clearly not optimum therapy and I think suboptimal therapy is a disservice to our patients,” said Dr. Mark L. Brantly, a pulmonary physician at the University of Florida.

Other committee members countered that even though Primatene was not ideal, it should remain available. “I think it’s naïve on our part to think that if this medication went away that these people would access appropriate care,” Dr. Mary E. Tinetti of Yale said.

The F.D.A., which usually follows the recommendations of its advisory committees, has not yet announced its decision. It plans to issue a proposed rule that would still be subject to public comment.

Ms. Kraeszig, a veterinarian, has already commented. After seeing a news report about the committee’s decision, she sent an e-mail message to the F.D.A. telling how her husband’s life was saved by the over-the-counter product. “If you ban Primatene Mist without another available O.T.C. substitute,” she wrote, “people will undoubtedly die.”

I have stocked up on my supply. I tried abureral and it does not work. There’s nothing out there that works like primatene mist.