Texas Silver Haired Legislature:Resolution SL10, PRIORITY #9
By: Charles Isaac, Wayne Merrill, Elgin Davis, Mary Pat Smith, John L. Johnson,
Improve Prescription Drug Labeling for Older Texans
A RESOLUTION TO: Assist visually-impaired and print-disabled older Texans by increasing the font size on prescription labels and drug data sheets.
WHEREAS, Prescription drugs significantly contribute to addressing health issues and improving life quality and expectancy. However, inadequate labeling and unreadable data sheets have led to ineffective treatment and/or harmful outcomes, particularly among the visually-impaired and print-disabled older Texans; and
WHEREAS, A Canadian study of drug labeling practices reported that legibility of medicine labels “is an issue of concern to individual pharmacists, pharmacy technicians, and the pharmaceutical industry as a whole.” The study pointed out that a combination of larger print, a consistent layout, left justification, and overall lowercase lettering with uppercase lettering for numbers in the instructions gives increased accessibility to patient-critical information; and
WHEREAS, Legislation is needed to mandate increased font size on prescription labels to a minimum of 12 pt Times New Roman, to require pharmacies to provide large-print data sheets upon request, or to incorporate accessible prescription labels and instructions (including dosing, potential side-effects, and contraindicated medications) that are readable via smartphone apps or no-cost-to-customer standalone readers such as Script Talk; now, therefore, be it
RESOLVED, That the 20th Texas Silver-Haired Legislature recommends that the 89th Texas legislature amends the Texas Health and Safety Code, Title VI, Subtitle A, to require accessible labeling for prescriptions provided to visually-impaired and/or print-disabled individuals in Texas.