H/T:
www.smalldeadanimals.comAs a pharmacist of 25 years currently working in hospital pharmacy-I can tell you that the drug shortages are ongoing, dire, and in some cases life-threatening. Take a look at ashp.org/shortages to see the extent of the problem. Many items on the list are for crash carts and critical care.
We’ve had to resort to back-up products, alternatives and work-arounds. All of which compromise quality of care and safety.
As industries are subjected to more and more byzantine regulations, and industries associated with health care are in particular demonized and told that their products and services are "rights", the inevitable occurs. They just stop bothering, because it's literally not worth it.
Quietly, a number of essential pharmaceutical agents have become short in supply. The link below, and the links there, illustrate the scope of the problem. Of particular note is the fact that the US consumer has, for decades, effectively subsidized the socialized medical systems of other countries. Because the pharmaceutical companies must sell their products at such low margins to the socialized systems, they have sought to recoup their substantial R&D costs in the US. What will happen as that last semi-private market also fades into oblivion? What will happen when the government destroys personal incentive to work extra hours, to undergo years of difficult study in chemistry and medicine? When it destroys the incentive for a business to take on billions of dollars of R&D in pursuit of new drugs?
We're already seeing it, and this is only a hint of what's to come.
http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/archives/016586.html