Love this quote:
In 60 percent of cases, manufacturers do not know or do not provide reasons why their drugs fall into short supply, ASHP found.
I’ll take a wild guess at the underlying reason: “profiteering by monopoly”.
Sounds to me like they need to provide abundant supply or else their drug goes into public domain
Lots of the shortages seem to be generic routine stuff like antibiotics or even saline solution. It’s weird.
the root cause of shortages of low-cost, off-patent generic drugs is well established. These drugs have razor-thin to non-existent profit margins, driven by middle managers who have, in recent years, pushed down wholesale prices to rock-bottom levels. In some cases, generic manufacturers lose money on the drugs, disincentivizing other players in the pharmaceutical industry from stepping in to bolster fragile supply chains. Several generic manufacturers have filed for bankruptcy recently.
Reading between the lines here, someone is fucking with the market on purpose. Drop the prices so low the competition goes out of business trying to keep up, then jack up the prices to make it all back multiple times over. Businesses don’t drop the price of products for no reason.
Well no, but if you’re engaged in some drug-fueled (heh) 4d chess with the competition vying for the lowest price, a global disruption to the supply chain is going to play merry hell with whatever passes for well-laid plans in corporate management these days.
Patents on drugs should not exist. There are other ways of rewarding research other than handing out monopolies.
We get to pay way more than other countries and they’re running out. Awesome.
A lot of the US shortages are impacting other countries (at least with ADHD meds, from what I’ve heard)
It seems like the ADHD meds shortage has been going on for years now, I speculate by design. Then again, ADHD time is a joke.
Yeah part of it is the fact that ADHD meds are severely over-restricted, but also ADHD med manufacturers & patent holders are just pieces of shit
I am curious how they are over restricted? Like just in general, or in comparison to other drugs?
Because I agree, all drugs are over restricted now. But amphetamines are some of the most desired pharmacy drugs, after opioids.
Many times when a doctor learns you have ADHD and especially if you take meds for it they’ll just treat you like a drug addict. You have to go through massive hoops to refill your meds every month and even if you’ve been taking the same exact meds for over a decade, doctors will still treat you like filling the prescription is a massive risk and think getting ADHD meds is “drug-seeking behaviour”. Often, doctors have many biases against mental disorders, and ADHD is one of the clearest to see. Outside of the US/Canada many ADHD meds (even non-stimulants) are just outright illegal too, but that’s slowly changing.
There’s also the problem of insurance. Insurance just goes out of their way to fight you over ADHD treatment costs, especially meds. They deem it “non-essential” and even if you get them to cover a prescription once, you’ll probably have to deal with them denying it again. It actually causes people to not be able to take the only medication that actually helps them (different meds have different effects on different people, and some medications can cause things like pretty bad headaches or lack of appetite which are unpleasant, or just flat out don’t have an effect.
The ironic thing is that most of the problems you have to deal with to get ADHD meds are also things that ADHD literally causes you to have an extremely hard time doing. It’s a sick and twisted joke lol.
Thankfully, I haven’t experienced the part about doctors myself, but I’m very close to people who have and it’s super common to find people venting about it on ADHD communities.
But I think the takeaway is that neurotypicals abusing the substance has made big problems for people who actually use the meds for the disorder. Of course, drug abuse shouldn’t make one group able to “take away” the right to meds from another group, and people should be allowed to use drugs recreationally, so in reality the laws are the problem.
So basically the outset of the pain problem. Wait until most people just get a scale and buy their amphetamines off the net.
ADHD time is a joke.
It’s a clown-faced rubberbanding flat circle.
It’s draconequus
Leaked over into Canada now, trying to scrape up more pills now after months of docs and pharmacists almost aggressively claiming “there is no problem” when I expressed concern that filling my prescription on the exact day the pills ran out might not be sustainable.
Overprescription does that
Fewer regulations should prevent shit like this. Guess what doesn’t?
War on drugs success
