Last warning: Asthma inhalers go "green" on Dec. 31, forcing patients still using the old-fashioned kind to make a pricey and even confusing switch. Calls from parents unsure how to use the new inhalers, or even what they are, have increased in the past two months as more drugstores run out of CFC-powered inhalers and automatically switch people who'd been expecting a mere refill, he adds. But industry figures show that in mid-November, 20 percent of all albuterol prescriptions still were being filled with CFC versions. The CFC-free options: GlaxoSmithKline's Ventolin HFA, Schering Plough's Proventil HFA and Teva Specialty Pharmaceuticals' ProAir HFA all contain albuterol. The last to go CFC-free will be the poor and uninsured whose asthma is less likely to be controlled, says Leo, who researches that issue at Michigan's Center for Managing Chronic Disease. When Eric Stoermer of Ann Arbor, Mich., made the switch in August, he waited a week for a new inhaler for his 11-year-old son Ethan.
