Free Republic

A new Senate report found that drug shortages in the U.S. are increasing in frequency and duration, due to over-reliance on foreign countries like China and India, which is posing national security concerns. The report from the Democrat-led Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs provided a damning indictment of the U.S. government’s ability to predict drug shortages and address them effectively. It also laid out troubling statistics on the rate of drug shortages.

Tammie Rachell Largent-Phillips, 52, has Type 2 diabetes. For the past two years, she's managed the condition using a drug called Ozempic, which helps people with diabetes keep blood sugar levels in check. But in November, she was forced to switch to another medication, insulin. The Ozempic she needed was no longer available at her pharmacy. In recent months, demand for the drug has soared, colliding with global supply issues. Together, it's led to a shortage of Ozempic. But the popularity of Ozempic, or semaglutide, isn't because of rising rates of diabetes. Instead, it's because of its weight loss benefits,...

"In shortage" drugs include antidepressants, antibiotics, heart medicines, cancer-fighting drugs, and pain killers. More than 100 pharmaceutical drugs are facing supply chain shortages, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) warned. Drugs currently listed as "in shortage" by the FDA include antidepressants, antibiotics, heart medicines, cancer-fighting drugs, and pain killers. "The FDA continues to take steps to monitor the supply chain," the federal agency wrote. "The Drug Shortage Staff within the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER) has asked manufacturers to evaluate their entire supply chain, including active pharmaceutical ingredients, finished dose forms, and any components that may...

America's hospitals are undergoing another emergency: The pandemic has worsened a decade-long shortage of hundreds of needed drugs. At the University of Virginia's medical center, technicians are filling single-dose drug orders for nearly 700 patients. Assistant pharmacy manager Brian Spoehlhof's job is to find drugs in short supply.... ...The FDA currently lists 109 drugs in short supply nationally. The American Medical Association is calling the shortage an "urgent public health crisis" that "threatens patient care and safety." According to the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists, three of the top five shortages are drugs used for chemotherapy, heart conditions and antibiotics....

CLEVELAND — In the operating room at the Cleveland Clinic, Dr. Brian Fitzsimons has long relied on a decades-old drug to prevent hemorrhages in patients undergoing open-heart surgery. The drug, aminocaproic acid, is widely used, cheap and safe. “It never hurt,” he said. “It only helps.” Then manufacturing issues caused a national shortage. “We essentially did military-style triage,” said Dr. Fitzsimons, an anesthesiologist, restricting the limited supply to patients at the highest risk of bleeding complications. Those who do not get the once-standard treatment at the clinic, the nation’s largest cardiac center, are not told. “The patient is asleep,” he...

How is this shortage of Normal Saline going to affect your facilities? I hear that Baxter may have production levels back to normal on the 17th January? This has the potential to be detrimental to our dialysis patients. Fresenius are also experiencing a shortage of saline Are your facilities making back up plans? I hear that hospitals will be affected too! Some of the units I work with use a vast amount of Normal saline per day What I want to know is how are these 'drugs' in short supply? Normal Saline, seriously how can this happen!

I searched FR and found no notice of the recall, and sure have not seen it on the news. I know I've been hit and miss due to a lot of health issues this past year, but we do watch the nightly news. And anything this big would have caught my attention because I keep Maalox in the house for occasional mild stomach upset/reflux when I eat something that disagrees with my stomach. Went to buy a bottle of Maalox and tried several different stores and types, finally one of the gals at a local Kroger's said Maalox had been...

<p>A national drug shortage is threatening to disrupt cancer therapy for 24-year-old Tammie Miura and at least 100 Hawaii patients who use the medicine as a main source of treatment.</p> <p>Hospital officials nationwide are fearful that the drug, methotrexate — a crucial medicine in the treatment of childhood cancers — will be exhausted within the next two weeks after a major supplier stopped producing it in November. Hawaii has not yet seen a shortage because local hospitals typically stock up on the drug, though medical providers and patients are worried that could soon change.</p>

A contentious relationship between drug manufacturers and the Drug Enforcement Agency may cause a continuing shortage of the attention deficit medication Adderall, which the FDA just added to its official drug shortages list, the New York Times reported. As of 2007, about 9.5 percent, or 5.4 million, of school-aged children were diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyper Disorder, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Adderall prescriptions went up 13.4 percent from 2009 to 2010, and more than 18 million prescriptions were written for the drug, Reuters reported. As demand for the drug grows, more and more patients have...

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....The FDA says the main reason for the shortages is manufacturing deficiencies leading to production shutdowns. Other reasons include companies ending production of some drugs with tiny profit margins, consolidation in the generic drug industry and limited supplies of some ingredients.

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...

President Obama couldn't wait to trample over the legislative process again. This week, he issued his 98th executive order on an irresistibly exploitatable policy issue: prescription drug shortages. Soon, "One a Day" won't just be a multivitamin. It'll be the rate of White House administrative fiats. Federal officials darkly suggest that selfish industry "stockpiling" is endangering Americans' lives. "If we find out that prices are being driven up because shortages are being made worse by manipulations of companies or distributors," the White House further threatened, "agencies will be empowered to stop those practices. And the FDA and the Department of...

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...

Locally the news has been covering the shortage of Cancer Drugs. Patients are haveing life saving surgeries and trestments prosponded or delayed due to this shortage. This situation led me to ask WHY? I have found that Doctors are fighting to get drugs for their patients. Nuclear Medicine (lukemia etc) is having shortages of Isotopes due to the destruction of the Nuclear Industry. Have we missed the complicity of the Obama Admin in this silent genocide. When Gov policies result in a class of people dying it is in fact genocide. Big Pharma held meetings with the Administration and by...

FORT WORTH, Texas - If your dog has heartworms it will be harder to get a cure. The only company producing the parasite-killing drug has run out and veterinarians don’t know when they’ll get more. Veterinarians across the country are in a quandary because Immiticide is the only FDA-approved drug available to treat dogs with heartworms. Drug company Merial said its supply is gone and it can’t produce any more because it can’t get the drug’s active ingredient in the United States. The FDA has been hesitant to allow overseas suppliers to fill American orders. Vets are working with what...

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

The Food and Drug Administration is notoriously allergic to the concept of tradeoffs: FDA bureaucrats see eliminating risk as their highest goal, no matter what benefits might be destroyed in the process. This tendency has manifested itself most tragically in the current drug shortage. About 150 drugs considered “medically necessary,” including anesthetics and medications that treat lethal illnesses such as leukemia, are today in shortage. This problem has been growing since at least 2005, and there are several causes for it — but overly stringent FDA regulations are one reason it has reached such immense proportions. Since the “tainted drugs”...

How many of you have not been able to get a drug you needed to properly deliver anesthesia to a patient?” I asked. Every hand in the room went up. “How did that affect your patients?” I asked. “Two of our patients died,” one woman answered. I was speaking to a group of nurse anesthetists, enrolled in a business management program at Marshall University in West Virginia. I wish I could say their experience is unusual. It isn’t. About 90 percent of all the anesthesiologists in the country report they are experiencing a shortage of at least one anesthetic. Drug...

Doctors, hospitals and federal regulators are struggling to cope with an unprecedented surge in drug shortages in the United States that is endangering cancer patients, heart attack victims, accident survivors and a host of other ill people. A record 211 medications became scarce in 2010 — triple the number in 2006 — and at least 89 new shortages have been recorded through the end of March, putting the nation on track for far more scarcities. Some medical centers are rationing drugs — including one urgently needed by leukemia patients — postponing surgeries and other care, and scrambling for substitutes, often...

The number of prescription drug shortages has reached critical levels and is likely to get worse, not better, according to a national report and Berks County pharmacy managers. "I would hope that it's going to get better but I haven't seen anything that leads me to believe that's going to happen," said John Mercer, director of operations for Reading Hospital's in-house pharmacy. "It's gotten worse in the last few years and it's continuing to get worse." Shortages have also hit St. Joseph Medical Center, spokesman Michael B. Jupina said. Martin J. Kendra, pharmacist and owner of Birdsboro Pharmacy, said part...