#drug shortages

[spooniestrong]

Large and Random (?) Drug Shortages! There is apparently an FDA site you can search:

Been hearing about this a little bit for a few weeks, has previously only heard of it related to ADHD and Pain meds. Apparently it's more than that?

When you search for yours, check the specifics. I checked one of mine and it says discontinued but it's at a lower dose and seems to only be from one pharmaceutical company. I haven't heard anything about it being discontinued as a whole and I think I would have...

I checked another that's on that list and I get nothing back of it being in a shortage. So, you know, it's the FDA. They're only semi-helpful...

[macgyvermedical]

Do you think there’s a risk of any kind of epinephrine shortage? With the potential for even looser FDA rules I’m really worried about exposure to allergens. I haven’t seen any warning signs for a shortage, but you’d be more aware than I am. I’m already getting stuff to start making all my food from scratch which is exhausting but. Safety over convenience, I suppose.

There has technically been a shortage of epinephrine in general since May 2017 and of epinephrine auto-injectors since May 2018. It's honestly probably not going away any time soon. If you've been able to get epinephrine easily where you live in the last few years, you'll probably still be able to get it for the foreseeable future.

HOWEVER:

Generally, as products become scarcer, you start to see different brands and formulations than you're used to. So if they ask your doctor to change your prescription from, say, an Epi-Pen to a generic or even a vial, a shortage could be the reason.

Here's a site where you can check all the drugs currently in shortage.

[hereissomething]

Guys, things are getting bad for people who take SSRI's. The shortages are intentional for capital gain. The FTC is open for public comment for only 55 days. It's time to tell them how drug shortages affect us!!

[thoughtportal]

It's Not "ADHD Fakers" Taking All the Adderall 

https://sluggish.substack.com/p/its-not-adhd-fakers-taking-all-the

Global capitalism’s endless push for efficiency has led to shortcuts all over the place. In order to maximize profits, pharma companies operate with just-enough workers to make just-enough supply, 1 which makes them extremely vulnerable to any sort of unexpected disruption, like say, a global pandemic, a war in Ukraine, a sharp increase in oil prices, or a rise in ADHD diagnoses.

Companies do not make extra drugs to prepare for these unforeseen problems because they could go to waste, and waste is the enemy of capital, but they will put out all kinds of other excuses to explain product shortages instead.

For example, Teva has been telling the media that their inability to manufacture enough Adderall was due to a “labor shortage”. In reality, the company has cut 14,000 jobs since 2017, most recently laying off 300 workers in August of 2022. They’ve been fighting thousands of opioid lawsuits and are set to pay out $4.25 billion in settlements over the next 13 years.

[fenrislorsrai]

This emergency was predictable: There have been shortages of this drug in eight of the last 20 years. Yet federal health authorities have not prevented the drug shortages in the past and aren’t doing much to prevent them in the future. Syphilis, which is typically spread during sex, can be devastating if it goes untreated in pregnancy: About 40% of babies born to women with untreated syphilis can be stillborn or die as newborns, according to the CDC. Infants that survive can suffer from deformed bones, excruciating pain or brain damage, and some struggle to hear, see or breathe. Since this is entirely preventable, a baby born with syphilis is a shameful sign of a failing public health system. In 2022, the most recent year for which the CDC has data available, more than 3,700 babies were infected with syphilis, including nearly 300 who were stillborn or died as infants. More than 50% of these cases occurred because, even though the pregnant parent was diagnosed with syphilis, they were never properly treated. That year, there were 200,000 cases identified in the U.S., a 79% increase from five years before. Infection rates among pregnant people and babies increased by more than 250% in that time; South Dakota, where Strohfus works, had the highest rates — including a more than 400% increase among pregnant women. Statewide, the rate of babies born with the disease, a condition known as congenital syphilis, jumped more than 40-fold in just five years. - - -

Twenty years ago, there were at least three manufacturers of the syphilis shot. Then Pfizer, one of the manufacturers, purchased the other two companies and became the lone U.S. supplier. Pfizer’s supply has fallen short since then. In 2016, the company announced a shortage due to a manufacturing issue; it lasted two years. Even during times when Pfizer had not notified the FDA of an official shortage, clinics across the country told ProPublica, the shots were often hard to get. - - -

Having only one supplier for a drug, especially one of public health importance, makes the country vulnerable to shortages. With just one manufacturer, any disruption — contamination at a plant, a shortage of raw materials, a severe weather event or a flawed prediction of demand — can put lives at risk. What’s ultimately needed, public health experts say, is another manufacturer. Congressional Democrats recently introduced a bill that would authorize the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to manufacture generic drugs in exactly this scenario, when there are few manufacturers and regular shortages. Called the Affordable Drug Manufacturing Act, it would also establish an office of drug manufacturing. - - - In November, the Biden administration announced it was creating a new syphilis task force.

Bill number is S. 3398 if you want to call your Senator.

[guitarlove6437]

Why are adhd meds so hard to get right now?

Hi I’m a pharmacy tech. I fill prescriptions, release them to patients, answer the phone, and write instructions for prescriptions. Right now in the US just about everywhere is an adhd medication shortage. I can’t exactly give a “why is this still going on?” answer because I wish I knew. I can answer why it’s so hard to get. Oh and I have adhd too. But I don’t take any medication for it cause epileptic too.

Issue #1 - Manufacture Backorder

For one reason or another, the company (in this case multiple companies at this point) cannot make enough medication and/or distribute enough. What this means on the pharmacy end is if the individual store is lucky the store can get a stock bottle or two per order. Depending on what the pharmacy’s suppliers are, they might only be able to get those orders done up to three times a week. I say this cause one supplier for my store is only delivered M/W/F.

Issue #2 - Small Stock Bottles

These are typically (especially since we’re talking about controlled medications here) bottles patients don’t see. These are the bottles filled with medication X we then dispense for prescription Y. Sometimes medications are kept in stock bottles, like liquid antibiotics or birth control pills. But with rare exceptions, all controlled medicines are dispensed into amber vials.

What do I mean by small stock bottles then? The amount of actual pills per bottle. I would say a good majority of medications come in standard bottle sizes (60, 90, 100, 500, 1,000). I’ve seen some other high control bottles on the higher end of bottle size. Not adhd meds. The largest bottle size I’ve seen is 100.

Let’s say our hypothetical store has scored two bottles of methylphenidate 20 mg of 100 pills each. Before this, there were 10 pills leftover from previous prescriptions. So there’s a total of 220 pills.

If there only six prescriptions done of 30 pills each, the inventory is down to just 10 pills again. That’s nothing for pharmacy standards. There’s a automated robot standard in the chain I work in for common drugs (controlled and non controlled) and I easily see 100+ of prescriptions checked from that alone.

Issue #3 - Can’t Directly Transfer

I’m sorry and this sucks. I wish I could just call a different pharmacy and ask if they can take an adhd medicine prescription. It’s the law. If it’s a high control, we cannot do quite a few things. One is we can’t transfer from Store A to Store B. Yes, even if it’s the same chain.

Issue # 4 - Long Waitlist

In every pharmacy there is a queue called Fill on Arrival. These are prescriptions we can’t fill until we get enough of a supply to fill. This especially comes into play with manufacturer back orders. The reason why pharmacies are saying they don’t have enough even when they do? Because they have a long list of patients who have been waiting for their prescription to be filled. I have even been advised to tell people we don’t have medication that’s on back order because we have such a long waitlist. And my store isn’t even particularly busy in my area!

I want to be absolutely clear before I end here: every single one of you reading this frustrated you can’t get your regular adhd med, yeah I agree it does suck ass! I wish I could fill your prescription! I promise you, look at the tales from the pharmacy subreddit, you’ll see other worker’s frustration about all of this. The shortage has gone on way too fucking long. But it is not individual pharmacies’ fault. It’s the pharmaceutical companies, the suppliers, and the government since these are controlled medication.

Thanks for reading!

[hobohobgoblim]

Trans achievement unlocked!

crying in the pharmacy

[socialjusticefail]

DEA is preventing this drugmaker from making ADHD meds, but then other parts of the government is reaching out and requesting this drugmaker to make more ADHD meds. Read to the article to understand the why.

[secretromanticsstuff]

I'm gonna say it...

[uboat53]

All right, something has come up that has sparked a thought that I need to get out of my head. Specifically I need to tell you exactly why the "take care of yourself" individualistic approach we've adopted toward Covid and toward disease in general here in the United States is a terrible idea. LONG RANT (TM) time!

WHAT AM I TALKING ABOUT?

Recently, as you may have noticed if you have kid(s), infant/child Tylenol is in very short supply. It's not a coincidence that this is happening at the same time as outbreaks of RSV, Flu, and other respiratory and inflammatory illnesses are hitting kids hard and sending many of them to the hospital.

As far as the individualism, it's the general American idea that people should take care of themselves. We don't have a universal health insurance program, you have to buy it yourself (or, if you're lucky, get it through your work). We don't have a universal health care system either, people are asked to navigate a highly decentralized system of hospitals, urgent care centers, and private providers who may or may not be covered under their insurance; even the same provider for a different procedure.

Where these come together is in terms of drug distribution. You see, in many places if there was a shortage of a drug there would be a centralized system to collect and distribute it according to need. In our decentralized system, individuals are responsible for getting their own drugs.

HOW DOES THIS CAUSE PROBLEMS?

So let's think of this in terms of market forces. If something is plentiful you're not going to worry about it; you'll just go out and get it when you need it. If the supply is restricted for some reason, or if you think it might be, you'll probably try to stock up when you have the chance to get it.

If enough people stock up on it who don't actually need it, they can actually end up causing exactly the problem that they fear. Enough people buying and stockpiling can create exactly the shortage that they were buying and stockpiling in order to protect themselves against. This is known as "panic buying".

Of course, if someone who hasn't pre-emptively stockpiled the thing needs it, they may be out of luck.

THE SITUATION RIGHT NOW

After several years where respiratory diseases weren't much of an issue due to measures taken against them (masks and social distancing worked guys!) they've suddenly come roaring back. RSV, Flu, Covid, and others are now hitting kids particularly hard for a number of reasons and have overwhelmed pediatric wards in much of the country.

Even kids who don't get sick enough to go to the hospital are still getting sick and their parents are doing what we all do, giving them cold and flu medication to help ease the illness. More importantly, parents whose kids are not sick (yet?) have heard of the shortage of kids cold and flu medication and are stocking up in case their own kid gets sick.

What this means is that there a lot of parents whose kids are sick who cannot get any medication for them while some parents whose kids are not sick have medication they are not using.

And I want to be clear, this is not the fault of any of those parents. I'm one of them, I have extra Tylenol in case my own kid gets sick. This is the fault of a system that shifts responsibility for a society-wide issue onto individuals.

MARKET FORCES

Understanding the issue is best done by understanding some of the theory behind it.

Let's say that, in normal times, X amount of a good is made. When something happens to increase the demand for that good, those factories have to increase production to X+Y amount. This takes a certain amount of time. You have to secure additional raw materials, additional labor, and, if necessary, additional equipment.

In the meantime, while production gets up to speed, you encounter a potential shortage. If more people need the good than what was initially able to be produced and especially if, in addition to that increased demand, people who don't immediately need the good are stockpiling it in fear of a shortage, you can quickly run out of that good until such time as the factory or factories can increase output to meet the new demand.

In the case of something that isn't immediately necessary, this isn't terrible. If, for example, string cheese were the product in question, I think we'd all agree that it's okay and we can survive until production gets ramped up.

In the case of medication, however, this situation can literally cost lives. Children's Tylenol isn't exactly the kind of thing that will cause you to die immediately if you don't have it, but a lack of it will cause the symptoms of some children who don't get it to escalate to the point where they will need to go to the hospital when they otherwise wouldn't. Once at the hospital they will take up other resources which are also limited and which another child may die without. In other words, the lack of children's Tylenol is causing shortages of other goods which are more critical.

I should point out that none of this section is controversial, even those who promote market and individual solutions over government or centralized solutions acknowledge that these periods of adjustment occur under their proposed systems, they just believe that the benefits outweigh the costs. I simply disagree.

CONCLUSION

By making each American responsible for their own individual outcomes rather than making even the slightest effort at providing some form of centralized assistance we have created the conditions that lead to enormous market inefficiencies whenever a scarcity exists or even if one is feared to exist.

Ordinarily these are just annoyances, but when it comes to medication these inefficiencies can cost lives. There are some goods that simply need to be available when they are needed.

In a rational system we would acknowledge that some goods cannot be simply left to market forces, but our current system leaves us vulnerable to market swings when unexpected events force changes to supply and/or demand. In this way, our dedication to hyper-individualism is quite literally killing us and it would be wise of us to think about the things that we could make better instead of leaving each person to fend for themselves in a system that we know will kill some of them.

[theboombutton]

23 days left

FEDERAL INQUIRY INTO ADHD MEDICATION SHORTAGE ANNNOUNCED

IF YOU HAVE STRUGGLED TO GET YOUR ADHD MEDICATION, YOU HAVE 60 DAYS TO TELL THE FTC YOUR STORY FOR CONSIDERATION IN THIS INQUIRY AT THE LINK BELOW! The FTC must read all responses. So tell them about having to call multiple pharmacies, being unable to get generics, your struggles with insurance coverage, everything!

[fspgrad]

Capitalism only leads to collapse in the end. Endless greed is unsustainable.

[socialjusticefail]

This article talks about ADHD med shortages and the DEA upping the limited allowed to drug companies.

[danieldavidreitberg]

Revolutionizing Drug Shortage Management in the Pharmaceutical Industry with AI: Daniel Reitberg's Captivating Insights

Introduction

In today's fast-paced world, the pharmaceutical industry faces a significant challenge: drug shortages. These shortages can have severe consequences for patient care, leading to delays in treatments and compromised health outcomes. However, there is a glimmer of hope on the horizon. Artificial intelligence (AI) is emerging as a powerful tool in tackling the complex issue of drug shortage management. With its ability to analyze vast amounts of data, predict supply chain disruptions, and optimize inventory, AI offers innovative solutions that can transform the pharmaceutical landscape.

Predictive Analytics: Anticipating Shortages Before They Happen

One of the key ways AI is revolutionizing drug shortage management is through predictive analytics. By leveraging advanced algorithms and machine learning, AI systems can analyze historical data, market trends, and production variables to identify potential shortages well in advance. This proactive approach allows pharmaceutical companies to take preventive measures such as adjusting production schedules, sourcing alternative suppliers, or reallocating inventory to ensure a continuous supply of critical medications.

With AI-powered predictive analytics, manufacturers can identify patterns and correlations that human analysts might miss, enabling them to forecast shortages with greater accuracy. This not only helps to mitigate risks but also provides valuable insights for supply chain optimization and resource allocation.

Moreover, AI systems can continuously monitor various data sources, including regulatory updates, market dynamics, and even social media sentiment, to detect early warning signs of potential shortages. By staying ahead of the curve, pharmaceutical companies can proactively address supply chain challenges and minimize disruptions to patient care.

Intelligent Inventory Management: Optimizing Stock Levels

Another way AI is transforming drug shortage management is through intelligent inventory management. Traditionally, inventory management has relied on manual processes and guesswork, leading to inefficient stock levels and increased risk of shortages. However, AI-driven solutions offer a more precise and data-driven approach to inventory optimization.

By analyzing historical consumption patterns, production data, patient demand, and external factors like weather events or disease outbreaks, AI algorithms can determine the optimal stock levels for each medication. This ensures that pharmaceutical companies maintain an adequate supply of essential drugs while minimizing excess inventory and associated costs.

Furthermore, AI systems can dynamically adjust inventory levels in real time based on changing demand patterns, supply disruptions, or market fluctuations. This agile approach allows for efficient resource allocation and quick responses to unforeseen circumstances, reducing the likelihood of shortages and ensuring patients receive the medications they need.

Supply Chain Resilience: Strengthening the Pharmaceutical Ecosystem

In addition to predictive analytics and intelligent inventory management, AI is enhancing supply chain resilience in the pharmaceutical industry. By analyzing the entire supply chain, from raw material sourcing to distribution, AI systems can identify vulnerabilities and implement strategies to build a more robust and resilient ecosystem.

AI-powered supply chain optimization tools can simulate different scenarios, evaluate risks, and propose contingency plans to mitigate potential disruptions. For example, if a supplier faces production issues or a transportation route is compromised, AI can suggest alternative sources or rerouting options to maintain the flow of medications.

Moreover, AI can facilitate collaboration and information sharing among various stakeholders in the supply chain, enabling real-time communication and coordination. This transparency and interconnectedness enhance visibility and responsiveness, allowing for better risk management and faster resolution of potential shortages.

Conclusion

As the pharmaceutical industry grapples with the challenges of drug shortages, AI is emerging as a game-changer in the realm of drug shortage management. Through predictive analytics, intelligent inventory management, and supply chain resilience, AI offers innovative solutions to optimize the availability of medications and ensure patient safety. By harnessing the power of AI, the pharmaceutical 

industry can transform its approach to drug shortage management, improving patient care, and minimizing disruptions. With AI's ability to analyze vast amounts of data, predict shortages, optimize inventory, and enhance supply chain resilience, the industry can navigate the complex landscape of pharmaceutical production and distribution more effectively. Embracing AI-driven solutions paves the way for a future where drug shortages become a thing of the past, ultimately benefiting patients and healthcare providers alike. The time has come for the pharmaceutical industry to harness the potential of AI and revolutionize drug shortage management.

[theinsidesecrets]

Food And Drug Shortages Are Here And It Is Only Going To Get Worse

[gaykarstaagforever]

The drug supply shortages are because manufacturers have all of them made by like two factories in India to, of course, save money. And those factories are pressured to cut spending even further, so they routinely violate safety standards because ignoring rules and getting away with it saves money. Until they get caught and shut down temporarily.

This is all so US drug companies can make a pill for 3 cents and charge your insurance company $50 for it.

All of these 8-paragraph articles in Grandpa Media about how "complex" the problem is only don't list the cause as "rampant greed and political complicity" because every one of their websites has pop-up ads from Merck pushing some new fingernail yellowing disorder (FYD) medicine that costs $4500 a year and makes your anus bleed as a side effect. That 15 people in Washington DC were diagnosed with last year.

There is a drug shortage because the US medical-industrial complex is a real life 1970s dystopian novel satire of unregulated robber-baron capitalism. There is a drug shortage because the CEO of Pfizer got a 36% pay raise last year to $33 million, because he "steered" the company into making $100 billion in profit from selling their COVID vaccine.

There are drug shortages because this obscenity is going on and we aren't doing shit about it.

Maybe we should stop it.