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Inhalers With CFCs Phased Out

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The Associated Press

Published: May 31, 2008

WASHINGTON - Old-fashioned asthma inhalers that contain environment-harming chemicals will no longer be sold at year's end - and the government is urging patients not to wait until the last minute to switch to newer drugs.

Patients use inhalers to dispense airway-relaxing albuterol during asthma attacks. Other drugs to treat asthma also are dispensed via inhalers.

Chemicals called chlorofluorocarbons, or CFCs, once were widely used to propel the drug into the lungs. But CFC-containing consumer products are being phased out because CFCs damage the Earth's protective ozone layer.

As of Dec. 31, asthma inhalers with CFCs can no longer be made or sold in the United States. Inhalers instead will be powered by ozone-friendly HFAs, or hydrofluoroalkanes.

The Food and Drug Administration issued an advisory Friday saying anyone still using CFC inhalers should ask their doctor about switching now.

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