Drug Shortages....

[granfire]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/43718291/ns/health-health_care/

Now let me get this straight:

baseball players are hauled in front of congress to determine if they took substances that were at the time not banned....

But the ongoing, increasing shortage of medications needed in hospitals....

Federal Food and Drug Administration officials say the shortages are caused by manufacturing problems, firms that simply stop making drugs, and production delays.

No, what? firms just stop making the stuff?

 

[Dirty Dog]

Sadly, there is nothing new about this. Drug shortages have been an issue for at least the 30 years I've been in the ER. Right now, IV cardizem (which is used to treat atrial arrythmias, amoung other things) is in short supply.

Sometimes it's because of a production problem (contamination or somesuch that shuts down production for a time) and sometimes it's simply that a product is no longer profitable and the company stops making it. That's just a business decision. And is often shortly followed by the release of a new (and therefore patented, expensive, no generic competition, profitable) drug that does the same thing.

 

[granfire]

Sadly, there is nothing new about this. Drug shortages have been an issue for at least the 30 years I've been in the ER. Right now, IV cardizem (which is used to treat atrial arrythmias, amoung other things) is in short supply.

Sometimes it's because of a production problem (contamination or somesuch that shuts down production for a time) and sometimes it's simply that a product is no longer profitable and the company stops making it. That's just a business decision. And is often shortly followed by the release of a new (and therefore patented, expensive, no generic competition, profitable) drug that does the same thing.

Considering one can lose their family home under imminent domain rulings because the community needs another Walmart...one really has to wonder...
A little bit of socialism would work wonders here, no? (It's nt like the companies are starving in the protective bubble the US has build around them...)

 

[Dirty Dog]

As a rule, I stay out of the Study. It's too messy.

I've said this before. People need to decide if medical care is an entitlement. If it is, then the US needs to socialize all aspects of it and provide free care (including free drugs). As it stands, we're required to provide free medical care. And yet, even though it's obvious that food and shelter are more important to survival than medical care, nobody seems to expect Safeway to give away food, or landlords to give away free housing.

 

[billc]

You forgot the word, "Yet," dirtydog.

 

[billc]

Sure, if the government can really screw up free vaccinations for kids, I'm sure they won't screw up complete control of pharmacueticals under a socialized drug plan...

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/1521511/posts

A small sample of the governments incompetence with a successful program:

Supposedly there were millions of children who were slipping through the cracks and not receiving the protection vaccinations would provide. The truth was there was no crisis. The poor, the uninsured, the under insured, and Native Americans have access to free vaccinations through public health clinics already. In fact over 96% of the nations children were insured at the time of this so called crisis.
But wait, there is more. Undaunted by the facts, Hillary continued in her attempt to show us how the village can care for the health of its children. She established a huge national distribution center with a large, government run warehouse in New Jersey. Soon vaccine manufacturers were shipping vaccine to the warehouse. All seemed peachy until a representative of the vaccine manufacturer noticed the warehouse wasn't refrigerated. Without refrigeration the vaccine stored in the warehouse would become stale and actually present a risk to the children inoculated. Additionally by only having one warehouse, the system was a disaster waiting to happen. A simple warehouse fire could wipe out the supply of vaccine for the entire country. Well the central distribution of vaccine from this warehouse was becoming such a public relations nightmare that it was abandoned.

But wait, there is more! Several states including Texas and New York had modeled their own programs to dove tail with Hillary's scheme. They had made no provisions to acquire vaccine of their own, and now were in a state of panic.
At last there was a vaccine crisis. The fact that it had been caused by Hillary Clinton seemed to go unnoticed by the main stream press.
But wait, there is more! All in all the Clinton Administration blew $460 million dollars on this vaccination plan. They purchased 41% more oral polio vaccine than they needed and 13 million doses of Rubella vaccine, 60% more doses than all the unvaccinated kids in the United States.
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YES, SOCIALIZING DRUGS IS JUST THE WAY TO GO.
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Also:

[SIZE=+2]Hillary's Vaccine Shortage
[/SIZE]
August 15, 2003
The Wall Street Journal
[SIZE=-1](EXCERPT)[/SIZE]
Everyone knows America's vaccine industry is in serious trouble, with an ever dwindling number of producers and recent severe vaccine shortages. What everyone also should know is that the National Academy of Science's Institute of Medicine has now pinned much of the blame on Hillary Rodham Clinton….
[T]hey identify as a fundamental cause of the problem the fact that the government purchases 55% of the childhood vaccine market at forced discount prices. The result has been "declining financial incentives to develop and produce vaccines."

The result is a cautionary tale for anyone who favors national health care. Already very high in 1993, childhood vaccination rates barely budged. A General Accounting Office report at the time noted that "vaccines are already free" for the truly needy through programs like Medicaid. Meanwhile, however, the Hillary project dealt the vaccine industry another financial body blow.
Thirty years ago, the Institute report notes, 25 companies produced vaccines for the U.S. market. Today only five remain, and a number of critical shots have only one producer. Recent years have brought shortages of numerous vaccines, including those for whooping cough, diphtheria and chicken pox…
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YES, GOVERNMENT CREATED SHORTAGES OF CRITICAL CHILDHOOD VACCINES IS JUST WHAT THE GOVERNMENT IS CAPABLE OF. AND THAT WAS A PROGRAM THAT WAS SUCCESSFUL, OR AS SUCCESSFUL AS ANY GOVERNMENT PROGRAM CAN BE.