Greater Boston Physicians for Social Responsibility Calls on AstraZeneca  to Introduce its Symbicort Dry Powder Inhaler to the U.S.  for Climate Protection Purposes

** FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE ** 

July 2, 2024 

 

Media contact: 

Wynne Armand, MD, Member of the Board of Directors

Greater Boston Physicians for Social Responsibility

warmand@mgh.harvard.edu, (617) 584-5808

 

Greater Boston Physicians for Social Responsibility (GBPSR) is asking pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca to bring its asthma medication, Symbicort (budesonide-formoterol) Turbuhaler dry powder inhaler, to the U.S. market, and has created an open letter to the company for health institutions and individuals to sign on. This dry powder form of Symbicort is the formulation used in many of the asthma trials, and is readily available in Canada, the United Kingdom, much of Europe, China and other Asian countries – but not in the U.S.

The current propellants in pressurized metered dose inhalers (MDIs) are potent greenhouse gases. In 2020, the greenhouse gas emissions from metered dose inhaler use in the U.S. was the equivalent of driving 500,000 gas-powered cars for a year. The current formulation of Symbicort available in the U.S. is a MDI which uses a propellant (HFA 227ea) that has 3,350 times the global warming potential over 100 years as compared to that of CO2. Dry powder inhalers like the Symbicort Turbuhaler do not use any propellant gases.  Switching from pressurized MDIs to dry powder inhalers, when appropriate, can significantly reduce these emissions.

Climate change worsens asthma by contributing to wildfires, longer heat waves with high levels of ground level ozone, and longer, more severe allergy seasons. Paradoxically, the MDI medications used to treat asthma are hastening climate change. It is critical that we, in the U.S., have access to low emission dry powder inhalers like Symbicort Turbuhaler, especially as budesonide-formoterol is an important tool included in global and national asthma management guidelines.

Greater Boston Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR) is a non-profit advocacy organization with more than 17,000 members. Our chapter includes experts in public health, cancer epidemiology, occupational medicine, environmental health, emergency medicine, and disaster preparedness.