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The manufacturer that recently shut down, Akorn Operating Company LLC, had filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in May 2020. It was the only company to make certain albuterol products used for continuous nebulizer treatment. It’s a staple in children’s hospitals, but had been out of stock since last fall. Without that particular form of the product, hospitals have had to scramble to find alternatives.

[H/T combat_boots]Image of boxes of prescription medicine Tamiflu at link Tamiflu fills are at a 10-time high for this time of year, according to GoodRx.com. Justin Sullivan/Getty Images America is facing a shortage of four key medications used for common illnesses in children as virus season comes back in full force.Officials have declared a shortage of first-line antibiotics amoxicillin and Augmentin, which are used to treat bacterial infections. Tamiflu, the most common flu medication in the US, and albuterol, an inhaler for asthma and to open airways in the lungs, are also in short supply, according to the American Society...

[H/T combat_boots]Hospitals are filling up all across America, and there are extremely alarming shortages of some of our most important medications. Health authorities are warning that RSV, the flu and COVID are combining to create a “tripledemic”, and there are simply not enough medications to go around. Personally, I am most concerned about RSV. It is spreading like wildfire from coast to coast, and we are being told that very young children and the elderly are particularly vulnerable. I wrote an entire article about the RSV outbreak earlier this month, and since that time things have gotten even worse. Our...

The transition to the new inhalers was mandated by Congress to remove one of the last remaining exemptions to the Montreal Protocol, a treaty signed in 1987 to reduce chlorofluorocarbon, or CFC, emissions that can damage the Earth’s ozone layer. The Food and Drug Administration was charged with phasing out all medications using CFC propellants once viable alternatives became available. Albuterol inhalers, used as rescue medicines for asthma attacks, were some of the last holdouts.