Posted on 01/03/2012 5:30:25 PM PST by bd476
TRENTON, N.J. (AP) -- The number of new prescription drug shortages in 2011 shot up to 267, well above the prior record and about four times the number of medication shortages in the middle of the last decade.
Figures just released by the University of Utah Drug Information Service, which tracks national drug shortages, show there were 56 more newly reported drug shortages in the U.S. last year than in 2010, when there were 211. By contrast, there were only 58 drug shortages reported in 2004.
As the drug shortages worsen, so does their impact on patient care, particularly in hospitals. The inability to get crucial medicines has disrupted chemotherapy, surgery and care for patients with infections and pain. At least 15 deaths since 2010 have been blamed on the shortages, which have set a record high in each of the last five years.
"At the beginning of the year, we were on a pace of about a shortage every day," Erin R. Fox, manager of the service, told The Associated Press. "Luckily, that pace has definitely diminished."
< Snip >
Besides disrupting patient care, the shortages have delayed clinical trials comparing experimental drugs to older ones and have led to unprecedented price gouging, with hospitals sometimes having to pay outrageous markups for scarce drugs.
End of short excerpt. The rest of the article continues here: 2011 medication shortages set new record at 267
(Excerpt) Read more at hosted.ap.org ...
It’s obvious what is happening:
PHARMACY EXECUTIVE: There are reports of shortages of the drugs we make.
ASSISTANT: Then we should ramp up production and make lots of money!
PHARMACY EXECUTIVE: No, let’s not do that. I get more joy out of reading about people suffering and dying than I do in making money.
I am being totally sarcastic, of course. I wonder if liberals think that companies actually behave this way. If there’s a shortage, it’s virtually always the fault of a government.
Yet some folks seem to shrug this off as if there's nothing wrong, or that there is nothing they can do about it.
Naive much?
I do want to say that we are generally over medicated here in the US......I wish we could just say “screw you” to big pharma and the insurance companies...
to
I do want to say that we are generally over medicated here in the US......I wish we could just say “screw you” to big pharma and the insurance companies...
to
I loved your sarcasm because those were words from the mouths of all the liberals I've ever heard. Behind closed doors, hopefully a few liberals know better. Yet in public, they never seem to risk questioning their rabid leaders.
Explain.
I had heard of the shortage of chemo drugs; but, just in the past few weeks I have been reading of shortages of drugs used in the "crash carts" at hospital emergency rooms.
The list, Ping
Let me know if you would like to be on or off the ping list
Versed is my drug of choice for those procedures. Not awake. Not asleep. Not giving a damn.
I meant to say that the “unintended consequences” were intentional...drug shortages in the US are planned.
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