This is America, the land of the plentiful and the spoiled so then why is there of all things a Cancer drug shortage in this country putting patients at risk? We certainly sell enough packaged foods here laced with all kinds of additives and preservatives to give the entire population cancer. Why isn’t the treatment drugs available? Shortages of crucial cancer drugs are threatening the care of patients who are already fighting for their lives, a new study shows. 62% per cent of doctors in the study say it has affected care.

Surveys or studies as they call it now are everywhere tracking everything up to the minute because companies are willing to pay good money to receive the valuable information found. If only someone would take the same care in finding solutions to the high percentage of problems in the world. In this case the findings create difficult choices for physicians.

Cancer specialists are unable to provide the most appropriate drugs and are forced to make painful choices. What do doctors do for their patients? Well, 79% per cent switched chemotherapy regimens, which may be less effective. 37% chose among patients, leaving some patients to go without a crucial medication. 29% per cent omit doses which can reduce the chance of controlling cancer. These percentages are from Keerthi Gogineni at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine.

About 83% per cent of cancer specialists reported a drug shortage in the past six months and 92% percent said patients’ care has been affected, says the survey of 245 doctors presented this past Monday at the Chicago meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology. So, fancy society find the source of why we cannot get our drugs. We are a country that relies on drugs for treatments. Our medical schools teach our doctors nothing about holistic or natural remedies for treatment of any illnesses. Get those pharmaceutical companies out of the growing hair business and keep your penis hard business too. We need to treat Cancer patients who are dying.

 The oral drug capecitabine, for example, costs 140 times as much as a generic intravenous drug, 5-FU, which is the backbone of chemotherapy regimens for many gastrointestinal tumors. There were 251 drug shortages of all kinds in 2011 and 121 in 2012 according to the Food and Drug Administration . Most of the drug shortages have been the result of problems in the manufacturing processes that shut down production, the FDA says. I say, totally unacceptable and Congress should get involved to secure the well being of large numbers of our nation’s population.

 

Some hospitals hold the equivalent of lotteries to decide which patients receive a drug. Really? You have to win a game of chance in order to live? A study in December from St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital linked drug shortages to higher relapse rates among young people with Hodgkin lymphoma. The number of patients who were cancer-free after two years fell from 88% per cent before the shortage to 75% per cent after doctors had to substitute an alternate drug. What does it take for our leaders in this country to take a priority interest?