The Alliance to Modernize Prescribing Information Launches New Ad Campaign Calling Out Congressional Members for Blocking FDA E-labeling Modernization

Media Contact:
ampi@nahigianstrategies.com

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
July 26, 2021

Perennial ‘Earmark’ Results in 4.8 million trees and 90 billion sheets of paper wasted.

WASHINGTON – The Alliance to Modernize Prescribing Information (AMPI), an alliance of
pharmaceutical stakeholders, including brand and generic manufacturers, distributors, and
patient/consumer groups working to reduce environmental waste, today launched a :30
television and digital advocacy campaign called “Senseless Waste” directed at specific
lawmakers blocking legislation that could save nearly 50 million trees and 1 trillion sheets of
paper over the next 10 years. The campaign calls on House Appropriations Committee
Democrats to fulfill their campaign promise and support more sustainable pharmaceutical
practices by removing an annual barrier blocking funding of FDA efforts to modernize
prescribing information for pharmaceuticals that are shipped from manufacturer to prescribers
and pharmacists.

The campaign is DC-based, and the ad is aimed at highlighting the efforts of a handful of
congressional members who since 2014 have perennially and proactively obstructed the FDA’s
proposed rule aiming to modernize outdated paper labeling requirements that have been in
place for more than 60 years. The obstruction is an earmark for the paper lobby, carried by Rep.
Chellie Pingree (D-ME 1st District), Rep. Jaren Golden (D-ME 2nd District), and other members
of the Maine delegation who on one hand tout endorsements from environmental groups, while
purposefully blocking efforts by the FDA to reduce substantial paper waste.

“The paper lobby has run out of arguments for why it is in the best interest of patients and the
environment to continue to block the FDA from modernizing outdated prescribing information
regulations that are driving enormous waste for absolutely no reason,” said AMPI
Spokesperson Mark Hendrickson.
“Modernization is long overdue, as prescribers and
pharmacists overwhelmingly consult online, real-time updates to prescribing information while
discarding the paper versions.”

In 2005, the FDA began to provide electronic prescribing information to the National Institute of
Health (NIH) for posting on the DailyMed website. There, prescribing label changes are updated
in real-time, and, today, a majority of prescriptions are sent and filled electronically proving the
comfort prescribers have in receiving information electronically.

According to estimates based on Sierra Club data, Congress’ perennial prohibition of labeling
modernization has resulted in the destruction of nearly 29 million trees used to produce 540
billion sheets of paper labels since the FDA was first blocked by Congress in 2014.

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About the Alliance to Modernize Prescribing Information

The Alliance to Modernize Prescribing Information brings together technical expertise, real world
experience, regulatory knowledge, public policy understanding, and government affairs
expertise to develop a consensus proposal for electronic approved labeling information and to
develop and execute a strategy to implement that proposal. To learn more, visit:
www.ModernizeRxInfo.org