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Hospitals Scrambling for Medications Amid Growing Drug Shortage
Fox News ^
| 5/30/2001
| AP Staff
Posted on 05/30/2011 9:01:22 AM PDT by TennesseeGirl
WASHINGTON -- A growing shortage of medications for a host of illnesses -- from cancer to cystic fibrosis to cardiac arrest -- has hospitals scrambling for substitutes to avoid patient harm, and sometimes even delaying treatment.
"It's just a matter of time now before we call for a drug that we need to save a patient's life and we find out there isn't any," says Dr. Eric Lavonas of the American College of Emergency Physicians.
The problem of scarce supplies or even completely unavailable medications isn't a new one but it's getting markedly worse. The number listed in short supply has tripled over the past five years, to a record 211 medications last year.
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/health/2011/05/30/hospitals-scramble-medications-amid-growing-drug-shortage/#ixzz1Nr3MhZfO
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
TOPICS: Culture/Society; Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: drugshortage; hospital; medication; patient; shortage
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"The FDA has taken an unusual step, asking some foreign companies to temporarily ship to the U.S. their own versions of some scarce drugs that aren't normally sold here. That eased shortages of propofol, a key anesthesia drug, and the transplant drug thiotepa."Remember when we were told NOT to order meds online -- even from Canada -- or else we were all going to die from substandard pharmaceuticals?
To: TennesseeGirl
cut the time between the created drug and the generic.
To: TennesseeGirl
Obamacare will fix these problems. </sarc.>
3
posted on
05/30/2011 9:05:29 AM PDT
by
wjcsux
("In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act." - George Orwell)
To: Sacajaweau
“cut the time between the created drug and the generic.”
Then why will drug companies create new drugs?
4
posted on
05/30/2011 9:09:59 AM PDT
by
willk
To: TennesseeGirl
Note to self - don’t get sick and if I do get sick don’t do it after 3 pm on a Friday.
5
posted on
05/30/2011 9:11:39 AM PDT
by
bgill
(Kenyan Parliament - how could a man born in Kenya who is not even a native American become the POTUS)
To: TennesseeGirl
Remember when we were told NOT to order meds online -- even from Canada -- or else we were all going to die from substandard pharmaceuticals?I was thinking the same thing as I read this.. also came to my mind most drugs are not even produced here anymore.. they are made in China .. China could just cut off the supply if they wished..
6
posted on
05/30/2011 9:13:28 AM PDT
by
RnMomof7
To: ExTexasRedhead
If this is what’s happening before ObamaCare, I dread what’ll happen after it takes effect.
7
posted on
05/30/2011 9:13:49 AM PDT
by
Clintonfatigued
(Muslims are a people of love, peace, and goodwill, and if you say that they aren't, they'll kill you)
To: TennesseeGirl
So FedGov messes with the FDA regs to delay new meds and cut the supply of others.
Be prepared for FedGov to step in with EMERGENCY LAWS that must be passed without review, to fix the Crisis (that they created).
8
posted on
05/30/2011 9:15:31 AM PDT
by
DBrow
To: TennesseeGirl
Think of all the different âshortagesâ that have been reported lately. The politicians with their incompetent demagoguery, taxes, laws and regulations are killing our economy. You can be sure the politician and his immediate family and friends will have any and all necessary medicines. Perhaps when enough people watch their loved one’s die for lack of medicine while they see fat degenerate pols living like kings they will take the “pols” naked to the wall.
9
posted on
05/30/2011 9:16:50 AM PDT
by
AEMILIUS PAULUS
(It is a shame that when these people give a riot)
To: TennesseeGirl
I along with others here on FR... predicted this... and it is going to get worse and it will be more than medicine in short supply. Yes Virginia... elections do have consequences.
LLS
10
posted on
05/30/2011 9:20:08 AM PDT
by
LibLieSlayer
("If you lie hard enough and sell your soul... you can scam your way to the top" barack obama)
To: TennesseeGirl
Some experts pointedly note that pricier brand-name drugs seldom are in short supply. The Food and Drug Administration agrees that the overarching problem is that fewer and fewer manufacturers produce these older, cheaper generic drugs, especially the harder-to-make injectable ones. So if one company has trouble -- or decides to quit making a particular drug -- there are few others able to ramp up their own production to fill the gap, says Valerie Jensen, who heads FDA's shortage office. This is the main paragraph. What happens is that generics are cheaper -- and since they are cheaper, and carry such a narrow profit margin, companies are not going to jump to make them.
Meanwhile, cash-strapped hospitals are not going to maintain inventories of critical meds, instead depending on "just in time" deliveries. And distributors are not going to maintain inventories, due to how IRS taxes inventory as assets at the end of the fiscal year. So any interruption of the distribution chain means that people will die.
11
posted on
05/30/2011 9:24:49 AM PDT
by
PapaBear3625
("It is only when we've lost everything, that we are free to do anything" -- Fight Club)
To: willk
They won’t create any new drugs. They will go Galt. I can’t imagine any conservative suggesting this.
12
posted on
05/30/2011 9:26:17 AM PDT
by
malos
(Call Me Inpressed)
To: Sacajaweau
cut the time between the created drug and the generic. Did you read the article? It is the GENERIC drugs that are in short supply, due to non-viable profit margins. See my post #11.
13
posted on
05/30/2011 9:26:54 AM PDT
by
PapaBear3625
("It is only when we've lost everything, that we are free to do anything" -- Fight Club)
To: PapaBear3625
The problem is the FDA. When it costs a pharma $500 million to $1 billion to get a drug to market, there’s a serious problem. Get the gov. out of the way and reduce the time and money it takes to get a viable, effective drug to the patients.
14
posted on
05/30/2011 9:28:25 AM PDT
by
tenger
(It's a good thing we don't get all the government we pay for. -Will Rogers)
To: LibLieSlayer
I was just informed that my one B/P med, dyazide is no longer available...been taking it for 15 years!!! was told to call my doctor and request a replacement...
wake up voters...Hussein Obama has got to be returned to Chicago or maybe Hawaii or Kenya in 2012 if not sooner.
To: TennesseeGirl
All brought to you by Obamacare, one way or another.
16
posted on
05/30/2011 9:29:28 AM PDT
by
Secret Agent Man
(I'd like to tell you, but then I'd have to kill you.)
To: LibLieSlayer
We are seeing drug shortages and logarithmic escalations of prices for existing drugs in the veterinary field also. It seems every week we cannot get another drug that was readily available just months ago. Right now, we can use drugs extra label which means in innovative methods. I have seen eye ointment, triple antibiotic, go from $1.10 a tube to $12 a tube in just the last year. It is hard explaining to clients that we can't lose money selling them drugs they could previously obtain at a price ten times cheaper.
To: Sacajaweau
The drugs in short supply are already generic. The drugmakers have bigger fish to fry. Drugs still on patent yield much higher profits.
Injectable drugs have to be sterile and meet high purity standards. When they go off patent, they are even less attractive for the drug houses to devote production to.
To: TennesseeGirl
Something tells me that ultimately this pertains to a combination of overregulation, insane tort laws and ambulance-chasing lawyers. If it doesn’t pay to produce it, nobody is going to produce it.
19
posted on
05/30/2011 9:34:11 AM PDT
by
Mr Ramsbotham
(Laws against sodomy are honored in the breech.)
To: wjcsux
Obamacare will fix these problems. It will be conveyed as "If you think the shortage is bad NOW, just think how bad the shortage would be if Obama wasn't promoting government health care!"
20
posted on
05/30/2011 9:35:03 AM PDT
by
EGPWS
(Trust in God, question everyone else)
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