Drug Companies Choose Profit Over Patients - Drug Shortages

Drug Companies Choose Profit Over Patients

The United States faces an increasingly critical short supply of drugs. Cancer patients do without necessary chemotherapy medication and anesthesiologists cope with shortages of propofol -- an important sedative.

~snip~

Morphine for pain control and propofol, a sedative used during surgeries, are just the start. Hospitals can't get the sterile injectibles they need either, like Bactrim for infections. Epinephrine syringes used on heart attack victims, or those suffering for allergic reactions, are also on short lists across the country.

This is fricking INSANE!!!! People are waking up during surgery! Because of not having of the sedative Propofol!! I would sue there butts off.....not the hospital, but the pharma!!!

According to another article - across the United States, life-saving or medically necessary drugs are running low — or running out!!

When vital drugs run out, patients pay the price

Worse, the drugs that are in short supply are often the ones needed most. This year has seen shortages of common drugs used for basic treatments: morphine for pain relief, propofol for sedation, Bactrim injections for infections.

Sterile injectables, including the pre-filled epinephrine syringes used in emergencies for heart attacks and allergic reactions, have been particularly hard to get.

150 medications in short supply so far this year; deaths, injuries have followed

This is more about 'the profitability problem' than anything else, of course!!

Roche, like many manufacturers, stopped production when generics undercut the brand name price.

This is ALL about PROFITS and nothing more!! Lord, I am sooooo tired of the things that go on in this country and are costing Americans their lives! Enough is enough, for crying out loud!!

And yet there's enough viagra and cialis around to overdose the masses.

Funny how things work out, ain't it?

Here is a list of current drug shortages in the US.......

Current Drug Product Shortage Bulletins

Just a few.........

* Ciprofloxacin Immediate-Release Tablets September 22, 2010
* Ciprofloxacin Injection October 22, 2010
* Epinephrine 0.1 mg/mL Emergency Syringes October 26, 2010
* Epinephrine Injection October 27, 2010
* Fentanyl Injection October 26, 2010
* Interferon Alpha-2b, Intron A October 27, 2010
* Lidocaine 2% Emergency Syringes October 27, 2010
* Morphine Injections October 08, 2010
* Pancreatic Enzyme Replacement Products October 25, 2010

Some of these drugs are life saving to those who need them. And, of course, the gov cannot do anything!!!

Oh no!! But the gov can spend our $$ to bail out all sorts of companies, but nothing mconcerning pharmas and supplying drugs that so,m people cannot live without!! What a crock!!!

Originally posted by Jomina
And yet there's enough viagra and cialis around to overdose the masses.

Funny how things work out, ain't it?

Yes, isn't it??!!?? I am sorry, but I believe the gov needs to intervene here. They will continue making EXPENSIVE drugs like you mentioned, but not ones some need to just stay alive?????? I hate the fricking government more, and more, as time goes by.......

Stupid double post

The system is dangerously out of control in so many ways it's scary...

I have maintained for a long time now that even in a free market environment there are a select few industries that ABSOLUTELY should not be anything other than a government regulated time and materials type industry where you can make money but only at X ratio rather than whatever the market will bear...

these industries are

Medicine ENERGY Military Equipment and Education

medicine: Up until the 80's medicine was a CALLING... yes you could make money but people got into medicine to HELP people.... As it should be. And as for drugs etcetera pharma corps don't really cut their researchers, AKA THE PEOPLE THAT ACTUALLY CREATE THE ADVANCES, in on much more than a pittance for coming up with new drugs. So it's not like they can pull the there would be no incentive to invent if you capped our profits BS LINE....

Energy: same as above including how little they pay their engineers ETC...
Military equipment: Same pay rate issues PLUS while the free market is good in most respects, NOT WHEN IT COMES TO OUR SAFETY... If common sense rules annd etc would be implemented they would benefit everyone but the VERY FEW that pull off the massive spending for their personal gain.

Education: This is the opposite issue as the rest... Currently federal and state funding in the form of grants etcetera fund research programs and then when the programs bear fruit... THE UNIVERSITY and The Professor in charge have ALL RIGHTS to the IP generated which they usually spin off into a company and then CHARGE US AGAIN in the form of royalties etcetera usually in the fields above to use the things WE PAID TO DEVELOP


Our system is so broken and Kleptocratic it's unholy

Hence why Capitalism and Humanity don't mix.

This kind of thing is inevitable when the dominant motivating factor is money, and not health.

This is what deregulation has done........the banksters had a heyday, and caused a disaster for everyone else, the unregulated oil rig in the GOM, and now Big Pharma.

It hurts me to acknowledge this, because it's a horrendous scenario, but I now believe unregulated 'free markets' were intended to be the perfect vehicle for massive corporate crime, and also to further their agenda of mass population culling once they had appropriated all the money. It has all been part of the plan.

This lack of drugs is another absolute horror story. And at the same time they are banning all alternative remedies. Coincidence? These people are psychotic sadists

My God, what better way to control people than to withold pain killing and other essential medication. I don't believe it's even about the money. This isn't even capitalism run riot. It's satanic sadism running amok.

.

Thanks, OP for this thread, it's another bombshell and people really need to know about this. It MUST go viral.
I implore everyone to spread this information as widely as possible.

Its a conspiracy.
Cannabigerol one of maybe 80 molecules found in cannabis lowers blood pressure. This drug in its synthetic form might prolong the life of tens of millions of people in the US. Our Govt actively prevents the research into marijuana's medical uses and no doubt will try and prevent it from being marketed.

Not all patients respond well to conventional hypertension drugs. But the cannabis plant, through its chemical compounds, has been shown to have a beneficial, hypotensive effect. But a drawback in the therapeutic use of cannabinoids has been the undesirable psychotropic properties such as hallucinatory effects. Attempts to separate the hypotensive action from their psychotropic properties have been only partially successful until now.

www.israel21c.org...

I have not found one blood pressure medicine that doesnt have bad side effects.
This conspiracy is literally killing me.

Wow, this post has been an eye-opener since I already know of another med that's in short supply. I work at mental health in my county. Our outpatient nurse told me they are having a really hard time getting Haldol Decanoate IM - it's an injectable anti-psychotic we use for schizophrenics who are unable to consistently take oral meds to keep from ending up hospitalized.

If we can't get the shots, we have to give the pills - which many will forget to take so that will mean a spike in patients having to be institutionalized, which will ultimately cost society A LOT more money. I've been in this field for many years, and much of my lost sleep at night is due to worrying about what happens to our clients when TSHTF.

I actually don't think these kind of planned shortages can happen without violating basic free market principles. It's a red herring that the author of the article has found a way to bash free markets and trump socialism in the bargain. Price and product collusion are areas that are regulated by anti-trust laws. Those laws are put into place to prevent monopolistic behavior. This my friends is precisely monopolistic behavior as can easily be demonstrated.

The drugs which have 'shortages' are in need and this necessarily raises prices. Since anyone can manufacture these items, in a free market you would have an abundance of product since money can easily be made on them.

For example, iron nails are pretty cheap and are probably not a high margin commodity but are in abundant supply. If there is a demand someone will manufacture it! This is always true in free markets. Whats going on here, however is price fixing and supply fixing. This sort of collusion is illegal and can be prosecuted. However the drug companies have literally gotten away with murder for years.

What the government could do is fund startups specifically to meet these needs say via their small business innovative research program or something similar. The innovation would be to manufacture these items at reduced cost. If manufacturers receive some kind of strong arm tactics to create these shortages, then criminal activity is occurring. But our current leadership loves this kind of corruption.

Originally posted by Rockerchic4God
Wow, this post has been an eye-opener since I already know of another med that's in short supply. I work at mental health in my county. Our outpatient nurse told me they are having a really hard time getting Haldol Decanoate IM - it's an injectable anti-psychotic we use for schizophrenics who are unable to consistently take oral meds to keep from ending up hospitalized.

If we can't get the shots, we have to give the pills - which many will forget to take so that will mean a spike in patients having to be institutionalized, which will ultimately cost society A LOT more money. I've been in this field for many years, and much of my lost sleep at night is due to worrying about what happens to our clients when TSHTF.

I discovered the cure for insanity but nobody believes me.