As medicine shortages worsen around the country, nine out of 10 emergency doctors say they have lacked a critical treatment this month, and 69 percent reported that shortages have increased “a lot” over the past year, according to a new survey.
At the same time, 43 percent said that anywhere from six to 10 medicines were in short supply recently and nearly every doctor — 97 percent — was forced to use an alternative because of shortages. Still worse, 36 percent of the physicians reported patient outcomes were worse, including instances of harm.
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Just a related development on shortages. Today’s CDER shortage update listed as many items, if not more, than I remember seeing on a given day – roughly 58. And once again, sterile water was one of the closing items on the list.
There is an old ethnic joke about a country no longer being able to make ice cubes …. because they lost the formula. I doubt we have lost the formula for sterile water but that type of shortage continuing is disturbing, at best.
When sterile water has been recently relisted several times on the FDA’s list of ‘Drugs in shortage,’ one wonders if the industry is totally incompetent or simply that there’s just no money in it so ‘who cares?’ Obviously, some should but mercy is not a statistic virtue, it would seem.