There’s good news and bad news in the latest report on shortages from the Food and Drug Administration. There were fewer ongoing shortages at the end of last year, but the number of new shortages rose in 2017.
To be specific, the number of new shortages totaled 39 drugs and biologics, bucking a downward trend that was registered during each of the previous two years, when new shortages amounted to 26, according to a new FDA report. On the bright side, this is also much less than the 251 new shortages that occurred in 2011.
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Oh yes the onus of this issue is totally on the manufactures of these vital medications and their various components. /sarcasm
It has nothing at all to do with the larger companies buying out the smaller manufacturers. There was a time when a drug or component was manufactured by several different companies. Now all of the little companies have been scooped up by the big names which means that there are less checks and balances in the market. If one company has production issues there used to be others who could pick up the slack. This isn’t the case anymore.
And to say that these shortages are lessening up is a slap in the face to every consumer who relies on total parenteral nutrition and IV hydration to live. Most TPN components are still in some state of shortage and importing amino acids from the UK, Spain, and Italy is not a fix, especially when importing these vital components has to go through the FDA. Then again the FDA is one of the last organizations to report on shortages and manufacturing delays if they ever do at all. I’ve been dependent on TPN since 2016 and IV hydration since 2015 during that short amount of time there has always been at least one vital part of these life sustaining drug compounds on shortage at any given time. Currently all of my IV meds are in shortage and that is causing some of the few liquid medications I administrate enterally to be on shortage.
The cherry on top? While a vulnerable population of both adults and children who depend on TPN are scrambling to stay alive there’s an entire subset of the American population that with enough cash in hand can call a private physor walk into a commercial infusion clinic and get PPN and electrolyte infusions to deal with their hangovers. But yaknow there isn’t anything the FDA can do about that right?