Shipments From Abroad to Help Ease Shortage of Cancer Drugs
In Washington, a “dire shortage of
two critical cancer drugs will be resolved within weeks.” federal drug
officials say. Two drugs, Doxil and Methotrexate, have shortfalls that are
threatening the lives and care of thousands of patients. Gardiner Harris, the
reporter for this article, states that the shortages of the drugs came about
when “Ben Venue Laboratories” temporarily closed its manufacturing offices in
Ohio, because it could not guarantee it’s product safety. In speedy attempts to
fix this dearth of medication, the F.D.A. is allowing ‘temporary’ shipments of the
Lipodox, a drug similar to that of Doxil, in from India.
Dr. Peter C. Adamson, chairman of
finances at the National Cancer Institute, finds that the immediate threat of
the drug deficiency to have passed, and that this ‘importing’ is merely at its
best “a Band-Aid approach to the problem.” The F.D.A has expedited the
importation of replacement drugs from many different countries, along with
bringing back the application for Pharmaceuticals to manufacture Methotrexate.
This has led to the generic drug industry to provide agencies with $299 million
in annual fees to finance the review process of this application, so faculties
may produce more of these drugs.
This application renewal will also
help prevent some drugs from never going into short supply. The F.D.A. released
a list of instructions for drug companies to abide by while manufacturing these
critical medicines. Over the past year, 180 drugs have gone into short supply.
Reports have been sent to Congress for help in fully financing the F.D.A.’s
generic drug office, and currently this legislation is on issue and pending in
Congress. “Children are at such risk from drugs in short supply that it doesn’t
give me a whole lot of comfort that we’ve moved past one or two of these
shortages, What about the next one?” Dr. Adamson said.
This article brings a lot attention
to the reader about quite the crisis - a drug shortage for a disease so
serious, cancer. You would think that doctors and agents at the F.D.A. would
realize a shortage was coming before it actually came, but they didn’t and now
it looks bad on the US’s health system. Other countries are in the know about
us not having enough drugs to supply the sickest of the sick. WE are asking
them for drugs to help out people, and the biggest reason if because are
government does not have enough money to support the drug production.
Cancer is something that has to be
fought and treated as soon as possible. Something that grows inside of you and
destroys your body isn’t going to wait on the government, and neither are other
countries. Luckily, our bonds are tight with the counties we are seeking aid
from, but word gets around quickly. Other countries are going to see that our
government doesn’t have money to support our health system, and that we are
asking others for help. What happens when they don’t trust our government and
they think they wont be paid back in return. We loose allies and bonds with
people from other nations.
With the election of 2012 vastly
approaching, how is America going to respond to a financially unstable government.
This is a crucial time for everyone, locally, and internationally. America is
loosing that promising and hopeful stigma that we once carried. The poor are
going to start becoming more of a unit and the rich are going to be the other
end. The US lived by two extremes once and it didn’t go well, we don’t want
that happening again…and because of a drug production scarcity.
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