Posted on 10/31/2011 1:56:39 PM PDT by Hunton Peck
Acting once again without Congress, President Obama on Monday was directing the Food and Drug Administration to take steps to reduce drug shortages that administration officials say have placed patients at risk and led to price gouging.
The president signed an executive order -- his fifth in a week -- instructing the FDA to take action absent congressional approval.
Last year, the FDA reported 178 drug shortages -- mainly cancer drugs, anesthetics, electrolytes and emergency room drugs -- and the agency says it continues to see an increase in shortages this year. The White House also announced Obama's support for House and Senate legislation that would require drug makers to notify the FDA six months ahead of a potential shortage. Under current regulations, drug manufactures are only required to notify the FDA if medically necessary drugs are being discontinued. Notification of shortages is strictly voluntary.
In remarks before he signed the order, Obama said drug shortages have nearly tripled over the past five years while Congress has foundered.
"Even though the FDA has successfully prevented an actual crisis, this is one of those slow-rolling problems that could end up resulting in disaster for patients and health care facilities all across the country," he said. "Congress has been trying since February to do something about this. It has not yet been able to get it done. And it is the belief of this administration ... that we can't wait for action on the Hill."
The executive action is part of an overarching push by the White House to portray Obama, who is facing ...
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
Does this mean Obama doesn’t think he has enough meds?
It’ll be interesting to see how they accomplish THAT! What are they going to do, hold drug makers at gunpoint 24/7 forcing them to produce? Are they going to call them “boy” as well?
He concluded, somewhat awkwardly: “All right. With that, I’m going to sign this bill — or this executive order — excuse
LOL !!
You will make more meds and it will be your choice to make them and you will be happy about it! ?????
We talked about this at work today. The feds could declare this to be a national security issue and yes, force us to ramp up production. However, that's not going to do anything to solve the problem unless the FDA starts bending some rules on like-for-like components, especially APIs.
Sorry. I should've known I couldn't get through that with a straight face...
Don’t even joke about such a thing. That is a nightmare scenario which would essentially cripple pharma manufacturing in this country.
The MO is clear from past actions by the Obama Mob.
They’ll parcel out rights to drug patents from those drug companies not on the inner team, to those on the inner team. They make one or two BIG examples just to be “Big Dog”.
Some mid-size or small companies will be bankrupted. Unionized companies will be favored. I’m not sure of the degree of unionization in Pharma. I don’t think it is big.
In that case, watch for some of the inner Unions to march in and demand unionized work forces, even among professionals.
Also suspect patents will be let out to Indian and East African outfits, with the drugs allowed to be imported into the US.
Unless you are a total imbecilic, brain-dead, immoral, unethical zombie (and I realize there are still many out there) these “Executive Orders” and over reaching (around Congress), only show Obama’s true colors and how out of control and far removed, from the Constitution, that he is.
I, for one, don’t care if the EO says, gives authority, or helps people who truly need it.....Executive Orders are not Constitutional and THIS president, more than any other in History, has WAY WAY over used and over-reached his Executive Power.
He SO needs to be behind bars....like YESTERDAY!!!
Where does te FDA have their manufacturing plants?
Let's see...Hussein's cult has controlled the Congress 50 of the last 60 months....and in FACT, during that time, (the first two or so of those five years) Hussein himself was part of that Congress!
So the BULK of the problem lies with Hussein and his cult--who had control of the Congress for all of the last 5 years...except for these last 10 months, when the Congress has been trying to deal with Hussein's debt.
Miniscule. The unions have no leverage. In 21 years in Big Pharma, I have yet to see anything but excellent salaries and benefits at all levels of the industry.
When he says stuff like that it just shows how stupid they think his voter base is that they won’t figure out who was in charge in Congress. They want to keep them down too!
Believe me, with the attitudes of some FDA inspectors, they act like the plants are theirs. We went so far as to give them their own permanent dedicated office and conference room for their sometimes two week fishing expeditions at our facility.
What do you think of my predictive speculations, all in all?
Do you think there’s even a snowball’s chance of that nightmare coming true?
Right now, the left wing trial lawyers are driving up litigation costs. That cost will be passed on to the consumer. Soon, medicine will become unaffordable, and the "left wing saviors" will "have no choice" but to get involved.
This is how they got the schools, health care, housing, banks, and part of the auto industry (foreign and Ford refused their bait).
The liberal MO---
Manufacture a crises.
(make medicine unavailable through legislation, then unaffordable).
Wait for the people to cry out for relief.
(Oh no!I can't afford my medicine anymore! There isn't enough!).
Blame an opponent.
(in this case: big Pharmaceutical needs to be controlled by an 'emergency' executive order! OMG!).
Come in with a "new way" (socialism/communism) and take over the industry because the "old way" (capitalism/liberty) didn't work!
("People could DIE!!!!")
All right on target, aside from the unionization; instead, the criteria will be campaign money from the companies. But all the rest of your predictions are very plausible.
The FDA does not have authority to force drug makers to continue production of a drug.
They forgot to say, "For now....."
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