Max
08-17-2003, 01:11 PM
Drug shortages becoming more and more common
By RENEE JEAN\Daily Journal Assistant Managing Editor
With summer heat come snakes, and with that the danger of snake bite.
The good news is there is a new anti-venom that generally has fewer side effects than the old kind.
The bad news is, this anti-venom is not yet available at hospitals in the St. Francois County area. The serum is just in too short supply nationwide, and has been for about a year.
Officials with the Parkland Health Center, who recently treated a case of snake bite in an Iron Mountain Lake man, say they have been trying diligently to secure a supply of the new anti-venom for more than a year.
It is preferred for certain types of snakebite and is supposed to have fewer side effects.
The old type of serum, which area hospitals do have on hand, is still very good, health officials stressed, and has saved many lives. But the newer serum is better in certain cases.
The newer treatment is so far available only in a few metro facilities. Officials weren't sure why the drug is unavailable, but added that drug shortages are not all that unusual lately.
Dolly Currington, a pharmacist at Parkland Health Center who has been in the field for 22 years, says drug and vaccine shortages seem to have become more common in the past two or three years.
Not all the medications in short supply are uncommonly used, she added. Some of them are fairly common for a wide variety of health problems, such as solumedrol, a steroid that can be used to treat inflammation due to arthritis, surgery and spinal cord injury or generic prochlorperazine, which is used to treat nausea.
Currington estimated there are 20 to 30 drugs in short supply at any given time.
Sometimes pharmacists can find a good substitute for the drug or a different manufacturer. Other times there really isn't a replacement.
Currington said not long ago there was a shortage of a chemical used for testing bile acids. The product was unavailable for well over a year, Currington said, and there was no substitute. Patients were instead given a fatty meal to see how they handled it to gauge what the test would have been able to more accurately do.
"That's not really a substitute," Currington said. "That's just a different way of handling the problem."
County health officials confirmed they have also seen shortages of some vaccines from time to time.
There was a shortage of tetanus and diphtheria vaccine in 2001 and 2002.
One of the two manufacturers making the vaccine was required to update its equipment by the FDA. The company decided the changes were too expensive and discontinued the product, leaving only one manufacturer to make something that takes about eight months to create.
There was also a shortage of flu vaccine sometime around 2000. That happened because one component of the flu vaccine was ineffective and the serum had to be remade.
Currington said drug shortages are something the FDA has been looking into, but added reasons for shortages vary widely.
Sometimes a particular drug does not make enough money, other times there are regulatory issues involved. Components for a drug may be in short supply.
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By RENEE JEAN\Daily Journal Assistant Managing Editor
With summer heat come snakes, and with that the danger of snake bite.
The good news is there is a new anti-venom that generally has fewer side effects than the old kind.
The bad news is, this anti-venom is not yet available at hospitals in the St. Francois County area. The serum is just in too short supply nationwide, and has been for about a year.
Officials with the Parkland Health Center, who recently treated a case of snake bite in an Iron Mountain Lake man, say they have been trying diligently to secure a supply of the new anti-venom for more than a year.
It is preferred for certain types of snakebite and is supposed to have fewer side effects.
The old type of serum, which area hospitals do have on hand, is still very good, health officials stressed, and has saved many lives. But the newer serum is better in certain cases.
The newer treatment is so far available only in a few metro facilities. Officials weren't sure why the drug is unavailable, but added that drug shortages are not all that unusual lately.
Dolly Currington, a pharmacist at Parkland Health Center who has been in the field for 22 years, says drug and vaccine shortages seem to have become more common in the past two or three years.
Not all the medications in short supply are uncommonly used, she added. Some of them are fairly common for a wide variety of health problems, such as solumedrol, a steroid that can be used to treat inflammation due to arthritis, surgery and spinal cord injury or generic prochlorperazine, which is used to treat nausea.
Currington estimated there are 20 to 30 drugs in short supply at any given time.
Sometimes pharmacists can find a good substitute for the drug or a different manufacturer. Other times there really isn't a replacement.
Currington said not long ago there was a shortage of a chemical used for testing bile acids. The product was unavailable for well over a year, Currington said, and there was no substitute. Patients were instead given a fatty meal to see how they handled it to gauge what the test would have been able to more accurately do.
"That's not really a substitute," Currington said. "That's just a different way of handling the problem."
County health officials confirmed they have also seen shortages of some vaccines from time to time.
There was a shortage of tetanus and diphtheria vaccine in 2001 and 2002.
One of the two manufacturers making the vaccine was required to update its equipment by the FDA. The company decided the changes were too expensive and discontinued the product, leaving only one manufacturer to make something that takes about eight months to create.
There was also a shortage of flu vaccine sometime around 2000. That happened because one component of the flu vaccine was ineffective and the serum had to be remade.
Currington said drug shortages are something the FDA has been looking into, but added reasons for shortages vary widely.
Sometimes a particular drug does not make enough money, other times there are regulatory issues involved. Components for a drug may be in short supply.
Email this story | Print this story