Drug shortages - are you being effected?

Wondering how many of you are having a hard time getting the meds or treatments you need due to drug shortages?

Many people don't understand what's going on with this.  There are several 3rd party companies who are intentionally hoarding drugs, and esentially holding them hostage by offering to sell them to hospitals at 600% mark-ups.  It's completely about making a profit.  And it's being done by this "gray market" at the expense of the healthcare industry and the American public.  And unfortunately, even if the hospitals pay the price gouging prices, they are not nessecarily getting the actual medications they are paying for.

Many of the drugs are chemo drugs and heart meds.

President Obama just signed an executive order to help the US Deptartment of Justice, the FDA, and FBI to help investigate and bring criminal charges against these companies.

Funny you brought that up, as you know i went to the clinic to have my port flushed today, i thought it strange that there was only one person in the chemo room besides me, especially on a Tuesday because Tuesdays was the day i usually had chemo and it was full, i should have asked, i will next month, i'm curious now.

I just learned of this during my last visit to my GYN/Oncologist.  I think it is terrible that this "gray market" is holding us hostage.  It is not enough that we patients have to go thru all this, but now we have the added worry of whether or not our next treatment will be available and that our insurance will actually pay because of the extreme markup.  Maybe the actual names of these "gray markets" should be published and then in our obits it can read "Jane Doe lost her battle to ovarian cancer not because of the illness, but because of the greed of ____________ company making it impossible to get the needed drugs.” 

These “gray markets” have no human decency and only think of filling their pockets. Well, as far as I am concerned they can just keep their drugs and I’ll just take my chances and live out what days are left without them. What’s a few months? I’ve always heard what goes around comes around – well, when some of these company’s family or even themselves get struck with some catastrophic illness maybe they will have to use all these $$ they have made off others to take care of themselves.

Best of luck to all!!!

My husbands 5fu he was taking for gastric cancer was effected, he went to the hospital for his treatment and was told the medication is no longer available and he would need to take a tablet form called Zeloda, instead, He took 2 rounds of Zeloda -8,  500mg tablets a day for 2 weeks on and one week off, and had many more side effects-hands and feet were swelling and peeling, body aches, etc, more severe fatigue. Finally back on the infused 5fu and doing better. Could not believe they had a shortage of an important drug like that!

Yes.  One of my meds which should be two 20mg pills must be written as four 10mg pills because the 20mg and 30mg pills have been on back order for almost 2 months now.  Medicaid only covers two pills a day (regardless of dosage...huh?).  Yep, you read that right...they will cover two 20mg pills or two 30 mg pills but they will not cover four 10mg pills.  I am just waiting for them to reject another medication because the pill is yellow instead of being white.  

Medicaid just shoots theirselves in the foot about stuff like that Katherine. I needed white cell booster shots, wouldn't pay for me to have a subcription and take the shots myself, but pay for me to go to a clinic and them pay more for a nurse to give me the shots. Also rules on how much can be done on one visit, they pay more so that you have to make extra trips for treatments than have everything done in one visit. And people wonder why they have financial problems huh? 

My husband was diagnosed with stage 4 Stomach and Esophageal Cancer on September 2, 2011.  He started agressive radiation and chemo.  His chemo was suppose to be cisplaton(sp) and then a pump with 5-FU, however, there isn't any 5-FU in the country.  So he takes xzoloda(sp) pills.  I felt so sorry for my husband, but he feels so sorry for all the children not being able to get the meds they need to get well.  I really hope they bring these charges to these companies and let everyone know what companies they are so America can boycott anything they are trying to sell...

On Nov 01, 2011 10:30 PM Jenholm25 wrote:

Wondering how many of you are having a hard time getting the meds or treatments you need due to drug shortages?

Many people don't understand what's going on with this.  There are several 3rd party companies who are intentionally hoarding drugs, and esentially holding them hostage by offering to sell them to hospitals at 600% mark-ups.  It's completely about making a profit.  And it's being done by this "gray market" at the expense of the healthcare industry and the American public.  And unfortunately, even if the hospitals pay the price gouging prices, they are not nessecarily getting the actual medications they are paying for.

Many of the drugs are chemo drugs and heart meds.

President Obama just signed an executive order to help the US Deptartment of Justice, the FDA, and FBI to help investigate and bring criminal charges against these companies.

Do you know anything about the shortage of Adderall 20mg tabs (Not extended release) and Skelaxin which is a muscle relaxer. Both have been hard to get since August or September

Just got back from the clinic to get my port flushed, they said there was shortages, but it varied from week to week, they said they didn't have any B 12 to give for shots at all for awhile, apparently the shortage problem is over now from what they told me