Posted on 05/17/2023 2:13:33 PM PDT by Oldeconomybuyer
Thousands of patients are facing delays in getting treatments for cancer and other life-threatening diseases, with drug shortages in the United States approaching record levels.
Hospitals are scouring shelves for supplies of a drug that reverses lead poisoning and for a sterile fluid needed to stop the heart for bypass surgery. Some antibiotics are still scarce following the winter flu season when doctors and patients frantically chased medicines for ailments like strep throat. Even children’s Tylenol was hard to find.
Hundreds of drugs are on the list of medications in short supply in the United States, as officials grapple with an opaque and sometimes interrupted supply chain, quality and financial issues that are leading to manufacturing shutdowns.
The shortages are so acute that they are commanding the attention of the White House and Congress, which are examining the underlying causes of the faltering generic drug market, which accounts for about 90% of domestic prescriptions.
The Biden administration has assembled a team to find long-term solutions for shoring up the pharmaceutical supply chain, at a time when the United States remains heavily reliant on medicines and drug ingredients from India and China. And in recent weeks, generic drugmakers, supply-chain experts and patient advocates have appeared before lawmakers to discuss the problems.
The scarcity of generic forms of chemotherapy to treat lung, breast, bladder and ovarian cancers has only heightened concerns.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
A spike is a spike - exactly !
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.