{"id":3426,"date":"2011-10-17T23:30:49","date_gmt":"2011-10-18T03:30:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blueheronhealthnews.com\/site\/?p=3426"},"modified":"2011-10-17T16:27:30","modified_gmt":"2011-10-17T20:27:30","slug":"drug-shortages-are-you-at-risk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blueheronhealthnews.com\/site\/2011\/10\/17\/drug-shortages-are-you-at-risk\/","title":{"rendered":"Drug Shortages-Are You at Risk?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Recently, AARP published a report on their online news magazine regarding the impending drug shortage that hospitals, clinics and pharmacies are beginning to face.<\/p>\n

It caught my attention because we discuss pharmaceuticals at length in many of our articles, and the very drugs that are reported to be on the short supply list are the ones that are the most vital like post-operative medications and those used for chemotherapy.<\/p>\n

By October of 2011, the number of different pharmaceuticals that the FDA was reported were critically short exceeded that of all of 2010. In 2010, the number of reports were 180. Already in October of this year there were 211.<\/p>\n

What are the reasons for the shortages and who seems to be the most affected?<\/p>\n

These will be more critical questions to answer as more and more baby boomers exit the business and industry sector and move into retirement.\u00a0 The highest population of pharmaceutical consumers are those of the age range from 65-80.<\/p>\n

The number of people in the US alone that fall into this category is expected to dramatically increase over the next 10 years as boomers continue to enter retirement at the same time advanced in medical care and disease prevention continue to contribute to people living longer.<\/p>\n

Indeed, the increased demand from the population will already strain the supply chain, but that\u2019s not the only reported reason there are shortages.\u00a0 It is more complicated than simply an increased demand.<\/p>\n

There are many raw materials used in the production that are not as easily accessible, some factories are closed for inspection deficiencies, and less profitable drugs are being phased out of production.<\/p>\n

Quality control and manufacturing delays accounted for more than 70% of the shortages, but discontinuation accounted for 11%.<\/p>\n

From a practical standpoint, fewer resources with which to create the drugs in the first place seems to be a reasonable standpoint, if that\u2019s actually true, but halting production on less profitable drugs upon which many people have come to depend?<\/p>\n

That kind of \u2018business thinking\u2019 makes sense when choosing to close a shoe store or a restaurant in chains that are underperforming.\u00a0 But when it comes to profit over lives, this is just one more example of what those who call \u201cBig Pharma\u201d are notorious for doing.<\/p>\n

Another troubling dynamic is that drug companies are under no legal obligation to report shortages to anyone, leastwise the FDA.\u00a0 It isn\u2019t uncommon for a pharmacist to go fill a prescription for a maintenance drug only to find the order not filled at all by the supplier.<\/p>\n

Marry the \u201cI don\u2019t have to tell\u201d with \u201cI don\u2019t want to make\u201d and what you get is a shortage that neither the government nor a competitor can fill quickly, as these drugs can take weeks to create.<\/p>\n

According to a safety survey given to more than 500 hospitals, more than half reported having resorted to ordering drugs from a \u201cgrey market\u201d supplier, which is basically a supplier outside of the hospital\u2019s reported supply chain.\u00a0 Many times these hospitals really don\u2019t know exactly what they are getting, and they can actually be stolen from a reputable supply chain.<\/p>\n

Drugs that are reported as being in short enough supply as to cause noticeable problems for patients are mostly injectables that include Metformin (for diabetes), Methylphenidate HCl (for ADD, obesity and depression), and Buprenorphine (for treating certain drug addictions).<\/p>\n

Other drugs reported by pharmacies that are falling in short supply but haven\u2019t made the list fo the FDA include metoprolol for high blood pressure.<\/p>\n

Just because a pharmaceutical company doesn\u2019t have to report a shortage, doesn\u2019t mean consumers and pharmacies can\u2019t.\u00a0 There is information on reporting shortages on the FDA\u2019s website.<\/p>\n

But what does all this mean to the average health care consumer?\u00a0 Other than adding one more reason to try more aggressively to solve health problems naturally to avoid the need for drugs in the first place, it also might mean that you will need to prepare for shortage contingencies if something you take is on the list.<\/p>\n

Sadly, most of the drugs on the shortage list are those that are injectables used to treat various kinds of cancer.\u00a0 While natural solutions exist for some of the conditions affected by the shortages like high blood pressure, type two diabetes and anxiety, we just have to pray that the pharmaceutical companies will get their acts together to keep from hastening the deaths of patients affected by the cancer drug shortages.<\/p>\n

Talk to your doctor and pharmacist about the shortages to find out more about your medications and whether or not they are on the list, so you can discuss alternatives if that\u2019s the case.<\/p>\n

For natural alternatives to battling high blood pressure and anxiety, click here<\/a>. Our Natural Health Alternative library also holds solutions to defeating type 2 diabetes.<\/a><\/p>\n

Warm regards,<\/p>\n

Christian Goodman<\/p>\n

El331005<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Recently, AARP published a report on their online news magazine regarding the impending drug shortage that hospitals, clinics and pharmacies are beginning to face. It caught my attention because we discuss pharmaceuticals at length in many of our articles, and the very drugs that are reported to be on the short supply list are the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[36,18,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3426","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-diabetes","category-high-blood-pressure"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blueheronhealthnews.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3426","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blueheronhealthnews.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blueheronhealthnews.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blueheronhealthnews.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blueheronhealthnews.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3426"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blueheronhealthnews.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3426\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blueheronhealthnews.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3426"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blueheronhealthnews.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3426"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blueheronhealthnews.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3426"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}