When the United States Supreme Court overruled Roe v. Wade, everyone understood that some items would become more difficult to obtain, the most obvious being abortions. But who realised that this decision would make it impossible to get some critical medicines? Multiple tales of such hardships have emerged in the weeks after the SCOTUS verdict, according to AFP. One medication that no one expected to be affected was arthritis medication. Recent investigations, however, have shown an unnoticed consequence of the verdict and the following state-level abortion bans or extreme restrictions.
According to an AFP article, Melissa, an Alabama nurse, was told that her usual medication prescription for rheumatoid arthritis was ‘on hold’ pending proof that she wasn’t intending to use it to induce an abortion. She was outraged by the double standard that allowed one of her male best friends to get his methotrexate prescription filled quickly.
‘We’re going in the wrong way, and it’s terrible. I have two daughters. I don’t want to watch this ‘, she said. While this is not an isolated instance, it is unknown how often they are. According to reports, national organizations such as the American College of Rheumatology and the Lupus Foundation of America were aware of the situation and urging anybody who has been impacted to come forward.
A second lady, a 20-year-old university student from Ohio, told AFP that she had been using methotrexate to treat her lupus since 2020. She stated that a major pharmacy chain notified her that they were ‘no longer taking methotrexate prescriptions unless it was for the FDA-approved purpose of (treatment) breast cancer, or the patient was not apparently fertile’.
In statements to AFP, CVS and Walmart said they were working to comply with new state legislation in light of the Supreme Court’s decision to repeal the constitutional right to abortion. CVS stated that ‘we urge clinicians to put their diagnoses on the prescriptions they write’ in order to guarantee that patients have quick and easy access to medications.
The drug at the centre of the debate is methotrexate, which decreases inflammation and is commonly used to treat autoimmune illnesses such as inflammatory arthritis, psoriasis, and lupus. Higher dosages are also used in cancer therapy to stop cell division. It can also be used in medical abortions, but less frequently than the FDA-approved combination of mifepristone and misoprostol. Nonetheless, a number of jurisdictions have adopted legislation threatening legal action against medical practitioners and pharmacies who sell methotrexate.
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