Obama To The Rescue! Drug Shortages To Be Addressed

WASHINGTON (AP) – President Obama is directing the Food and Drug Administration to take steps to reduce drug shortages, an escalating problem that has endangered patients and raised the possibility of price gouging.

Patient deaths have been blamed on the shortages, which tend to affect cancer drugs, anesthetics, drugs used in emergency medicine, and electrolytes needed for intravenous feeding. Hospitals have been forced to buy from secondary suppliers at huge markups. Surgeries and cancer treatments have been delayed.

A White House official said Obama planned to sign an executive order Monday instructing the FDA to take action. The order would be the latest in the president's campaign to move on initiatives that do not require congressional approval.

Obama also will announce his support for House and Senate legislation that would require drug makers to notify the FDA six months ahead of a potential shortage, the official said. Under current regulations, drug manufactures are only required to notify the FDA if medically necessary drugs are being discontinued. Notification of shortages is strictly voluntary.

Of course, I'm curious to see how the GOP will turn this into a hostile act towards citizens, but seriously... this should have been done some time ago, and thank goodness he's stepping in and doing it now. People are dying to protect the bottom line, and that should never be. Hand mixing sterile solutions should never be what we are reduced to because the sterile version isn't available. The rules of the marketplace should not extend to life-saving treatment, period.  I've been following this for a while, reading cases of people who are dying or facing painful delays in treatment because the medicine they need is just not available, or insurance companies are balking at new prices.  In a word: unacceptable.