Physicians Against Drug Shortages Challenge the Controlled Drug Market for Hospital

We have written previously about the shortage of lifesaving drugs in the United States. This crucial topic is addressed in a recent New York Times editorial by Margaret Clapp, former chief pharmacy officer at Massachusetts General Hospital, Michael A. Rie, associate professor of anesthesiology at the University of Kentucky College of Medicine and co-chairman of Physicians Against Drug Shortages, and Phillip L. Zweig, executive director of Physicians Against Drug Shortages. They note 302 drugs were in short supply as of July 31, up from 211 a year earlier. The editorial asks: "Policy makers apparently failed to ask the important question: How could this happen in a free-market economy? That would have steered them to the giant purchasing organizations that control the procurement of up to $300 billion in drugs, devices and supplies annually for some 5,000 health care facilities. These cartels have undermined the laws of supply and demand."   The drugs   Many of the drugs are sterile injectables, which are cheap, and generally administered in hospitals and outpatient clinics and sold through hospital purchasing organization contracts, not through retail pharmacies or pharmacy benefit managers.   The scarce or unavailable drugs include anesthetics, chemotherapeutic agents, antibiotics, nutrients for malnourished infants, painkillers and even intravenous solutions. Physicians have been forced to improvise with less desirable or more expensive substitutes.   Fo...
Source: Policy and Medicine - Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Source Type: blogs