Oops: Pharmacist at ready for couples who were not
By JAMIE WETHERBE Special to the Daily Press
MID-CITY — Pharmacist Allen Lieberoff knows full well that, sometimes, even the best-laid plans can go awry.
Toiling away behind his counter during the graveyard shift at Walgreen’s on Wilshire Boulevard, he knows what the frantic women entering his store want. Lieberoff, one of just two pharmacists in Santa Monica that can sell the “morning-after pill,” said he gets up to a half-dozen customers a night looking for a quick way to undo what they may have done.
Sunday nights seem to be the busiest, he notes, perhaps because people “throw caution to the wind” during their weekends — a missed birth control pill here, a broken condom there — that is, if anything was used at all.
The Walgreen’s at 20th Street and Wilshire Boulevard is the lone Santa Monica pharmacy equipped at night to provide patients with emergency contraceptives, which cost about $20.
“Ninety-nine percent of the time, (patients) can count on somebody at night here,” Lieberoff said.
Lieberoff has b een providing the service for more than a year, and often assists customers from beyond Santa Monica’s borders.
Of the roughly 15,000 licensed pharmacists in the state of California, only 2,000 can supply emergency contraceptives to their patients, according to Jane Boggess, director of the Pharmacy Access Partnership, which works to expand consumer access to contraceptives.
In the United States, there are about 3 million unintended pregnancies each year, and about half of those result in abortion, said Boggess. Emergency contraceptives have the potential to eliminate 700,000 abortions annually.
While it doesn’t protect against sexually transmitted diseases, more than 95 percent of women who use the morning-after pill won’t become pregnant.
“We don’t really know how it works, just that if you’re already pregnant it does-n’t work,” said Bob Holbrook, a Santa Monica City Councilman and pharmacist. “It’s not a pro-or anti-abortion” issue.
Emergency contraceptives are a “second-chance birth control” that won’t interfere with an established pregnancy, Boggess said. They are birth control pills taken at special doses. Nausea and vomiting are the most common side effects.
For emergency contraceptives to work, they must be taken within 72 hours of unprotected sex — but preferably within 24 hours. Scheduling a visit to the doctor can prove difficult within such tight time constraints, so pharmacists have stepped in.
While pharmacists cannot prescribe emergency contraceptives, physicians allow pharmacists to initiate the therapy to patients. For a California pharmacist to furnish the pills, he must attend a minimum four-hour training session and arrange with a doctor a signed protocol detailing how and when to supply the pills to patients, Boggess said.
But that’s about to change. New legislation, effective Jan. 1, will simplify pharmacist participation by reducing training requirements to a minimum of one hour, and a state-approved protocol will be available online for pharmacists to download and doctors to sign.
“I personally, myself, won’t teach any one-hour courses,” said Kathleen Bes-inque, a Santa Monica pharmacist and associate professor at USC, who has trained thousands of pharmacists to furnish the pills.
Besinque points out that it’s difficult to cover all of the information needed in just one hour, but some pharmacists with more background in contraceptives will be better served by shorter sessions. The classes, heavily subsidized by foundations to encourage attendance, cost pharmacists $45 to attend. The training also counts toward the required continuing education pharmacists need to renew their licenses.
Most of those who support patient access to the morning-after pill said patients should use pharmacy resources.
“Be glad you have this. When I was (younger), we didn’t have” emergency contraceptives, said Lieberoff, adding that when he was young and a condom broke, he just had to wait... and sweat it out.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on November 22, 2003. Read the original PDF.