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September 28, 2012
For More Information, Contact:
Lisa Gardiner (916) 651-4011 .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
SACRAMENTO – Today, Governor Jerry Brown signed a bill by State Senator Joe Simitian (D-Palo Alto) that would make it easier for surplus, unopened medication to be donated to uninsured Californians.
Senate Bill 1329 builds on previous Simitian legislation (SB 798, signed into law in 2005), which for the first time allowed California counties to establish drug redistribution programs.
Every year, billions in unused medicine and supplies are wasted in the United States. Senate Bill 1329 allows a greater number of health care facilities to donate surplus, unopened, unexpired medications to Californians in need; permits non-profit community clinics and certain pharmacies to receive the donated medications; and makes it easier for county boards of supervisors or county public health officials to initiate a drug redistribution program.
“This is a creative, commonsense way to get perfectly good medicine – medicine that might otherwise be thrown out, or dumped in our water supply – into the hands of the people who need it the most,” said Simitian. “This is particularly important in these tough economic times.”
The bill is sponsored by SIRUM (Supporting Initiatives to Redistribute Unused Medicine), a nonprofit founded at Stanford that is dedicated to streamlining the medicine donation process. In the past couple of years, drug redistribution programs in Santa Clara and San Mateo counties coordinated by SIRUM have helped thousands of uninsured patients and redistributed 230,000 pills with an estimated value of $600,000. SB 1329 takes the next logical step and expands the pool of suppliers and recipients.
“Every day, perfectly good, unused medications get tossed out on one side of town, while somebody down on their luck does without the medicine they need on the other side of town,” said Simitian. “What a waste. With this new law, we can connect the dots, eliminate waste, save money, and help folks who are doing without.”
“Since SIRUM was started in 2009, we’ve seen first-hand the difference we’re able to make when we put medicine that otherwise would be thrown away to good use,” said Kiah Williams, a co-founder of SIRUM, which has developed an online platform to connect drug donors and pharmacies. “We think we could make an even greater impact now that this law allows us to expand the pool of suppliers and recipients and make it easier for counties to get involved.”
“It’s absolutely vital that we connect patients in need with the surplus supply that we have,” said Mymy Phu, supervising pharmacist with Santa Clara Valley Medical Center. “This law will help us do that.”
SB 1329 builds on previous Simitian legislation.
Simitian’s earlier legislation allowed skilled nursing facilities and drug manufacturers to donate unused medications and allowed county pharmacies to dispense the donated drugs to the underserved free of charge. The idea for the bill, from a group of Stanford medical students, was a winner in Simitian’s 2005 “There Oughta Be a Law” contest. After the law proved its worth over the last half dozen years, Simitian said he hoped to “build on the success of the program” to date.
The bill takes effect on January 1, 2013.
For more information, visit http://www.senatorsimitian.com.