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When in the emergency room last week, it became clear that a
compreshensive list of gluten free prescrpition drugs was not readily
available to either the prescribing physicians, or the pharmacist. It
scares me when I know more than the medical staff regarding GF status of
prescription drugs!  When they take the initial input: Are you allergic
to any medicines? I tell them the medicines I can't take, as well as
"Any drug that contains gluten (specifically wheat, rye, barley, or oat
ingredients as in inert binders)". The medic said that would be tricky,
since the Government does not require disclosure of inert ingredients
(binders), and they can be different from batch to batch.
 My question is this: Does the Celiac community recommend that the
prescribing physician to make it her/his job to research the GF status
of the drug they are prescribing? The trend is for the Doctor to write a
prescription, then the patient is left to hash it out with the
pharmacist to find out if it is GF. In the US, oftentimes the pharmacist
will pass that responsibility to the "prescribee" to call the
manufacturer themselves. I can't believe this scenario exists in the
so-called information age! It seems to me that the prescriber should
know what they are giving a patient. I know it is an FDA (USA)
requirement problem- but in the meantime, the burden seems to fall on
the patient with Celiac Sprue to do the prescription drug inert
ingredient research. How are other folks with Celiac Sprue dealing with
this situation? I don't mind double checking- but maybe if enough
Physicians are given the (inconvenience) responsibility of prescribing a
drug that will not give adverse effects to patients with Celiac Sprue,
or any other allergy, the Medical/Professional community will help
demand that inert ingredients be required to be added to the already
existing Database of prescription drug active ingredient listing.
Fran Oregon USA