Several new headlines concerning a recent executive order by President Obama in an attempt to alleviate the escalating drug shortages that have been plaguing the country.
‘FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg said the latest order would not be able to
prevent all future drug shortages. “But we can make a really meaningful
difference by expanding our net of early warnings,” she told reporters.
FDA officials have been investigating the problem but have had trouble
identifying a root cause and coming up with a solution.’
As we’ve mentioned on several previous posts – Here, Here and Here – one of the real reasons for the drug shortages are a lack of profitability by the manufacturers. Once a drug becomes generic – it becomes less profitable, and more likely to become a target for shortfalls and ‘grey market’ price gouging. It doesn’t matter if millions of people are taking life-saving cardiac medications – once they fall under the walmart/ CVS/ Kmart / discount retailer $4.00 price plan – you can predict a future shortage. Even cancer drugs play into this. As we’ve seen time and time again – critical, life-saving ‘cardiac arrest’ drugs are not exempt from this problem.
“As the number of shortages has grown, prices have skyrocketed in certain instances.
The White House cited an August Premier health care alliance report estimating that the “typical gray market vendor” jacks up prices by 650% on average.
“At the extreme,” the White House statement noted, “a drug used to treat high blood pressure that was normally priced at $25.90 was being sold at $1,200 due to a drug shortage.”
Now, if only the government would step in and take things one step farther – and actually punish/ hold companies accountable for creating intentional drug shortages – then we’d be talking… proponents of ‘free market’ economics might scream about authoritarian tactics – unless of course, it’s their chemotherapy, or life-saving medications that are unavailable…
</a
[...] This gouging of the American consumer needs to stop. These business practices when combined with medication shortages are hurting our patients – and hurting our (doctors, nurse practitioners) ability to treat [...]