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American Medicine

In America we face periodic shortages – of different foods, gasoline, jobs, loans, and controversially either taxes or spending cuts. but now we are experiencing shortages of drugs because of poor reimbursement of inexpensive generic drugs (which does not provide manufacturers with enough profit to promote production) and limits on factories and importation.
Now we know that these shortages can be more than just a nuisance. In a recent article by M. Metzger and coauthors <http://t.co/fIJC5szj>   it was shown that children treated with standard chemotherapy for Hodgkin’s disease had an improved survival without recurrence of their disease, compared to children who required substitution of a different drug because of a drug shortage.

In addition to cancer, shortages have been experienced in treatment of other diseases, including unavailability of intravenous solutions, anesthetic drugs, corticosteroid medicines, and antibiotics. When might such a shortage impact your care?

Because of these shortages, here are some tips about how you can protect yourself:

• Discuss your medicines with your doctor and pharmacist to ask if any may be in short supply.
• Inquire about which substitutions are safe, compared to those which might be might be risky.
• If you want more affordable medications, still ask for generic versions – since almost all have had no problems in supply.
• Contact your congressman or woman and senators to ask for congressional action on the problem

You can get more information in Chapter 30 Finding Affordable Medications in my book Surviving American Medicine.