Guest blog from Valerie Prince, President of APhA

The numbers on opioid use disorder (OUD) alone paint a grim picture. Opioids are tied to over three-quarters of drug overdose deaths. More than a million people have died in the United States from fatal opioid overdoses in the last two decades. We lost 80,000 lives to opioid overdoses in 2021 alone.

APhA stands with the global community today on the 35th commemoration of World AIDS Day. It’s an important opportunity to raise awareness about HIV infection, honor the lives affected by the epidemic, and commit to working toward eliminating HIV as a public health threat.

Dear Member, 

Last week I spent a few days in Kansas City meeting with pharmacists, some of whom were part of the walk-out that has been reported in the media. 

I wanted to write today to share some reflections on my visit and what APhA is doing to be part of the solution. 

In the past month, the profession of pharmacy has lost two very prominent leaders; Thomas Temple, longtime executive director of the Iowa Pharmacists Association; and Dominique Jordan, president of the International Pharmaceutical Federation (FIP) and former president of the Swiss Pharmacists Association (pharmaSuisse). I had the good fortune to know both of these gentlemen and I learned lessons from them that I thought would be worth passing on to those who read this blog. This is a tribute to both of their legacies.

In the 1989 film Field of Dreams, an Iowa farmer is inspired to pursue a dream. He builds a baseball field on his farm driven by the promise that, “if you build it, they will come.”