Posted on 04/20/2011 4:15:05 PM PDT by bvw
WASHINGTON -- The number of prescription drugs in short supply has more than tripled since 2005 and shortages are now more frequent than ever, []
Premier Healthcare Alliance -- a performance improvement alliance of more than 2,500 U.S. hospitals -- surveyed 311 pharmacy experts at hospitals and other facilities, such as surgery centers and long-term care facilities, about shortages during a six month period in 2010.
The survey found that 89% had experienced shortages that may have caused a medication safety issue or error in patient care. Eight out of 10 times a shortage occurred, the patient's care was delayed or the medication intervention was canceled.
[]
The report points to a number of reasons for the shortages but puts the blame largely on the pharmaceutical industry.
[]
"There is no doubt that the number of suppliers that provide these products has narrowed dramatically," said Martin Caponi, pharmacy director of Sacred Heart Medical Center in Eugene, Ore. []
Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) [] said financial considerations in the pharmaceutical industry are a huge factor[]
The report authors agreed.
"Pressures are mounting to offset profit reductions resulting from patent expirations, healthcare reform, and investments related to FDA regulatory compliance for older products," the report authors said. "Manufacturers are delaying or discontinuing investments, thereby impacting product availability."
(Excerpt) Read more at medpagetoday.com ...
Something that I learned this year is that many hospitals have their own pharmacies. Well, I knew that they had pharmacies, but the hospital where my husband has been going for radiation therapy has a pharmacy for perscriptions, as well as for OTC drugs. And they are WAY cheaper. I got a year’s supply of baby aspirin (3.25) for $3.
Anybody can park in the parking garage, get the receptionist to validate their parking ticket for free parking, and then go up to the pharmacy to pick up OTC drugs. True, it’s a bit of a jaunt to get to the hospital, but if you have an appointment anyway, you might as well check your supplies before you go and make a stop by the pharmacy. They have really good food too (cheaper than regular restaurants), and the pharmacy is next door. So I can see going for lunch and picking up your OTC drugs in the same trip.
I was wondering if there is any ethnic differences for Type I?
I get mine from overseas. Armour. Send me a freepmail and I’ll send the link to the site. Synthroid is crap. Only works on T3 I believe. People still feel like crap on it.
Agreed. The free market is NOT, under this FDA.
I know cooking meth doesn't compare to Soliris, and I have seen Afghanis make heroin with primitive implements in a shed, but lessons could be learned from the free market street pharmacology.
Just not what you wanted to learn.
They do create new drugs quite quickly and have a fairly flexible and creative marketing and distribution program. They also managed to figure out a way to sell hundreds of billions of dollars worth of the product world-wide without the need for a third party payer system. They have also managed to do this without a complicated Rx script process, one just walks up to the distributor and buys whatever amount of product that satisfies both trading parties.
On the other hand, its real hard to guarantee the quality of the product, again this may have plenty to do with the more deadly form of regulation the government on rare occasions cares to exercise - mostly on the consumer.
What we don't see out of Big Unregulated Pharma (BUP) is the manufacturers being sued by the consumer for a bad batch of drugs. We also don't see the FedGov requiring the manufacturers to give their product away to the "needy and disadvantaged". BUP doesn't have national socialized medicine boards dictating unprofitable reimbursement rates and prices expecting the united States consumer to pay for the R&D and lawsuit expenses. From what I understand, there isn't much paperwork involved with a BUP transaction.
I believe that simply letting these ideas roll around in your head for a few minutes, a way to bring down the cost and greatly increase supply of healing pharmaceuticals can be found.
There is a big pharma factory a few miles from my home. This was originally Hoffman La Rouche but later became Rouche Carolina. It has been put up for sale since Obama went into office. It is not very old and in fact was expanded just before the 2008 elections.
LLS
What I wanted to learn? Putting straw men out to win in arguments doesn’t even work against most crows, much less men. Try again.
Putting straw men out to win in arguments doesn’t even work against most crows, much less men. Try again.
I don't think I was hostile to your statement. Its sort of like everything else the government involves itself in, the scope of the original mission made sense, but it has transmogrified into some grotesque monster that destroys that which it was merely claiming to certify.
The FDA originally was sold to the public as a certification agency, its anything but that now.
So did every step since, every paragraph, every cite, every ruling. Each "makes sense" to the officials involved. Not just emotional, crowd following sense either. Real, technologically founded, rational, logical sense.
But every one a misstep, stolen, some are that of a thief, some of a thug, others of an abuser of the powers of high office. Slavery made sense. Slavery still makes sense to many in the world. The extermination of lesser beings like Jews and Slavs made sense to the ultra-logical Germans.
"Making sense", eh? Oh what law that makes!
The products are being saved for relatives and friends; that’s why you don’t see the specials as advertised. I heard about the same sort of scam being run on a Burger King “ticket” type game....someone involved in the game production held back the winning ticket and “arranged” for family members to win.
Most thyroid drugs will work...the issue is once you are regulated at a specific dosage on a specific thyroid drug brand or off brand you can’t change the brand (say from synthroid brand to an off brand) or it screws you up. Also an 88mcg dose of synthroid may have a better effect than 88mcg’s of another ‘throid brand and thus dosages may have to be adjusted; meaning more lab tests ect!
I had a similar experience with migraine medication.
What are they thinking?
Two meds I’ve taken 17 years with same ingredient, one long acting and one immediate release, became suddenly unavailable to the pharmacist and they did not know why.
When it became available again, the brand name was still unavailable, only the generic and the immediate release was still not available.
There was no explanation.
Natural thyroid extract worked far better for me than the synthetic crap.
Here are a couple of really good websites-just loaded with information:
http://www.stopthethyroidmadness.com/
http://forums.realthyroidhelp.com/index.php
Interesting.
Just last week I had a problem filling one of my meds I have been using for years. My Pharmacy said that Triamterene caps have been on backorder with no date of availability. I had to get the script rewritten for the tablet form that was available.
Cytarabine?
Chemotherapy drug shortage threatens leukemia treatment in children [Updated]
Try and track it down. Otherwise almost no one is reporting on this vital subject. The feral thugocracy under Obama and crew is harsh to those who would speak up on it. We Freepers — and others on the net — are one of the few hopes left for getting real news out.
Thanks!
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