Drug Shortages in America: Good or Bad?

In today’s post, I want to digress a bit and discuss the issue with America’s drug shortages.

Drug shortages in general are not new. What is new is that critical drug shortages are becoming more common according to the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists (ASHP).

Don’t get me wrong, this is not entirely a bad thing, although I am running the risk of ruffling some feathers. In my humble opinion, a short supply of prescription drugs is not so bad; however, it is a bad thing when critical, acute care or “medically necessary” drugs are also in short supply, which is the case right now. In 2010, 77 percent of drugs in short supply were acute care drugs.

These drugs are used as critical care medications for cancer, emergency treatments, surgery and other critical ailments. This has resulted in delays in critical treatment for affected patients. There are many trends and factors contributing to this critical shortage. I attached an article from one of my pharmaceutical journals that explain most of the issues and causes. The article is quite technical but it makes the case with references to back it up.

Why am I telling you this? One reason is to give you an indication of how large and lucrative the prescription drug market is to the pharmaceutical companies. With no FDA enforcement, they can simply stop manufacturing less profitable generic drugs. This practice ultimately affects patient safety and mortality. To put it bluntly, people die when medically necessary drugs are in short supply. Without regulatory power within the FDA to enforce the ongoing production of medically necessary drugs, these shortages can only be expected to get worse.

Another reason is to perhaps expose a duplicitous trend if I may be so bold. The fact is there is an abundance of other, perhaps not-so-medically necessary drugs flooding the market. Maybe we should be asking the pharmaceutical companies to take another look at what they are manufacturing. After all, drug availability is more than a business decision; it can mean life or death for some people as many frustrated health care professionals are now reporting.

And the final reason, to exemplify how important it is to take charge of your health and significantly reduce the potential for any drug use. Of course, you can’t control any situation in your life that may result in the need of medically necessary drugs. You can take control by creating and sustaining a healthy lifestyle with a little preventive care and potentially remove yourself as just one more pawn in the pharmaceutical companies’ high stakes game of greed.

Drug shortages are an unfortunate ongoing fact of life affecting many people in need of medically necessary drugs. Hopefully, all of the professional parties involved can effectively manage these shortages with minimal impact on those patients who are so much in need of these drugs.

This is literally a life and death situation for them. Do your best to support yourself and others around you to pursue optimal health. What do you think?

Anthony Pica is a health coach who lives in Laguna Beach. For more information about health coaching and successful weight management, please visit his website at www.123slim.tsfl.com.