It’s important to point out that no underlying safety concern arose to change the California State Board of Pharmacy’s stance on flavoring medications. California pharmacies, and pharmacies all across the country for that matter, have flavored hundreds of millions of children’s medicines over two plus decades without a single incident of harm. Nothing at all happened to cause anyone to question the safety of flavoring. The flavors pharmacies used in California are tested to ensure they don’t impact the potency of the medication, change the pH of the solution, or change the concentration of the medication. In fact, many pharmacies in California had recently invested in technology to completely automate the process of flavoring to make it even more safe. The California State Board of Pharmacy points to changes with USP 795 as the reason for their new position, but that doesn’t explain why they opposed a bill that would have untied their hands from USP 795 thus protecting access to medication flavoring, and it certainly is a position far out of sync with how most states treat medication flavoring today.

Currently, California and Washington are the only State Boards of Pharmacy in the country that subject flavoring to the full suite of USP 795 standards. Predictably, access to this valuable pharmacy service has been wiped out within their borders. They serve as the cautionary tale to any other State that may choose to follow their lead. There should be no doubt what will happen and how children’s health will be negatively impacted by doing so. Thankfully, most State Boards of Pharmacy recognize the benefit of flavoring to children’s health and wellbeing and take a more pragmatic approach.

For more information on how each State Board of Pharmacy approaches medication flavoring, visit www.flavorx.com/regulatory.