Sample Medications and the Uninsured

To the Editor: I am a family physician and recently completed residency in an underserved area. I am responding to an article in the September-October issue of the JABFP (Zweifler J, Hughes S, Schafer S, et al. Are Sample Medications Hurting the Uninsured? J Am Board Fam Pract 2002; 15:361–6).

To suggest that sample medications are harmful to patients is insulting to the physicians who work in underserved areas. I have had patients with multiple medical problems whose only competition for their unpleasant lot in life was their lack in funding. Their richness in medical illness was supported by their poverty. For these patients, the generosity of drug companies to leave medications in areas where they knew few if any patients would be able to pay for the medications was admirable. For months I was able to control blood pressure and diabetes in patients who would have otherwise succumbed to the tragedies of their disease.

This article shows an insensitivity to the physicians who serve patients with limited funds. These same patients, who would otherwise be adding to worsening morbidity and mortality statistics, take theses sample medications instead and keep their illnesses at bay. I agree that these patients deserve better care, but there are no funds to pay for such care, and the patients and physicians do what patients and physicians have done for centuries… the best they can.