Posted on 08/23/2011 5:16:24 AM PDT by GailA
At least 180 drugs vital for treating deadly diseases such as childhood leukemia and breast cancer are in short supply in the U.S.
Doctors and politicians are becoming increasingly alarmed at the situation and are proposing to set-up a stockpile of cancer treatments and to import drugs from a non-profit company.
The situation is being exacerbated by costs for some drugs rising steeply, manufacturing capacity problems and some treatments not being made in great supply because they yield small profits.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2028026/Cancer-drug-shortage-hits-US-supplies-180-treatments-running-low.html#ixzz1Vqx68omR
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
It affects all 50 states, and is NOT just cancer drugs, but some common ones, like water pills that some doctors use to treat mild hyper tension.
How’s that “free trade” thing working out America?
They may have to re-classify “Atlas Shrugged” as non-fiction.
This is not the first alarm that has been sounded on drug shortages, a search of FR brings up articles from as far back as April of this year.
http://www.freerepublic.com/tag/drugshortages/index?tab=articles
"Your guaranteed Medicare benefits won’t change — whether you get them through Original Medicare or a Medicare Advantage plan.”
“First of all, if you've got health insurance, you like your doctors, you like your plan, you can keep your doctor, you can keep your plan" President Barack Hussein Obama
“Cynics beware, I am romantic about the National Health Service; I love it. … The NHS is one of the astounding human endeavors of modern times.” (Donald Berwick)
Nah, we are too busy funding for death and RU486, who cares about cancer and healing. (/sarc off)
The real question is: Is this the next crisis that we can’t allow to ‘go to waste’?
Besides, those people tend to live longer and use more resources. What we need is more smokers.
Chemo Drug Taxol Shortage Puts Cancer Patients at Risk...this is from June of this year.
It’s not just that cancer drugs are highly costly to manufacturer, but also to administer, as each dose is mixed for each patient’s personal need so I’ve been told.
But the shortages of some more common drugs is not in this category so why the shortages?
Please Note: Express Scripts used by Medicare and Tricare patients, just bought out the scandal plagued Medco for $29 Billion http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Express-Scripts-buying-Medco-apf-2744067741.html?x=0
It is FR posted. Medicare/Tricare are administered out of the SAME office. :-( Saves the gov’t paper work. But both only pay pennies on the dollar to the provider.
Express Scripts provides Medicare and Tricare (over 65 retired Military) with their RX’s via mail. They are a witch to deal with. They also offered Walgreen’s half pennies on the $1 reimbursement when their contract was up for renewal, and Walgreen’s said NO THANKS. So beginning in January Tricare patients need to find a new drug store. BUT as each big chain’s contract comes due ES will do the same thing to them. Thus eliminating all but themselves as providers of Medicare/Tricare RX’s.
And you will NOT know from order to order what drug brand you will get, or from what country, and your insulin could be left in a hot mail box all day.
***I have stopped posting the Socialized Med Thread due to health reasons and a lack of FR interest.***
The shortages are because of “free trade”.
Offshore drug factories too often do not meet American standards, and the drugs cannot be imported. So how about we make them here?
And how about we stop destroying our own economy with “free trade”.
America first.
They are missing all those tax $$ from all those ex smokers.
All joking aside, I watched both my parents die of lung cancer, because they smoked. My dad was a heavy smoker 2 packs of Pall Mall a day, my mom, about half a pack a day. Both were ‘discovered’ to late to treat, this was back in the 80’s.
Stop if you do, think of your families and the pain it brings them, if not that, then just remind yourself of all the taxes you are paying every time you buy a pack.
Right after seeing an article on FR regarding this subject, I get a letter from my mail order med company advising that a particular cholesterol control med was unable to be supplied since their supplier was out, and the manufacturer wasn’t in much better shape.
Contrived is a word that may very well apply to this condition. With the passage of Obama “care” I am now unable to trust anything that goes on in the medical arena without questioning exactly WHAT is really going on.
Is it possible that once the patent protection expires it is no longer profitable?
This is precisely what happens under socialism. Fascist/socialist economies are so highly regulated that profit declines. You health insurance premium is becoming the equivalent of ANOTHER payroll with-holding tax that is being stolen.
Stop if you do, think of your families and the pain it brings them, if not that, then just remind yourself of all the taxes you are paying every time you buy a pack.
Taxes are a drop in the bucket. By the time one has smoked twenty years you could have bought a house with the money you might have saved. Of course that was back when we had an economy with an average interest rate above minus zero.
We would manufacture them here if there weren’t so many regualations and no chance of making a profit.
You repeat globalist talking points well, grasshopper.
America first.
Hadn’t thought of that, but a lot of the shortages are generics anyway.
Right you are! I went in to pick up some water pills the doc prescribed for my Mother.....and they gave me 3 pills and told me they had no idea when they’d get more. They said they had been ordering them repeatedly and they never came in.
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