Drug Shortages for People and Animals

Unbeknown to me, even though there have been articles written about it since this summer, the United States is experiencing a severe drug shortage that is trickling down to veterinary practices. Many of the drugs in limited supply are emergency drugs, pain medications and anesthetic agents.

As the Wall Street Journal reports, there have been many "near misses and errors" and even deaths because of the shortage. Most of what there has been is frustration on the part of health-care practitioners because of the lack of information pertaining to the shortages, including why are they occurring in the first place and when will they be over?

There are a lot of presumed reasons for these shortages, not the least of which is a drug company's prerogative to simply stop manufacturing a drug if they find it is unprofitable or if they can no longer obtain the ingredients used in the manufacturing of the drug. The FDA is looking into some enforcement issues that would halt these voluntary stoppages.

In the meantime, this is serious business for people and animals. If you or your pet is electing to undergo any type of voluntary procedure in the coming weeks it would behoove you to ask the doctors is they will be substituting an anesthetic drug because the one they usually use is unavailable. And if so, be sure to ask it that drug is as effective as the one they don't have.

When it comes to emergencies, you are pretty much as the mercy of your health-care provider, which it where it gets really scary. It is time to make the FDA accountable for the drug companies' carte blanche policy when it comes to making and distributing drugs. One would like to think someone is paying attention to what the drugs were designed to do in the first place: make people better.