Sick, Sick, Sick

The wait is over: Even without socialist healthcare you can enjoy drug rationing. More than 200 drugs — from chemotherapy staples to antibiotics, from anesthesia to morphine — are now being denied to critically ill people, rationed or scalped at stratospheric prices. Quality problems, including potentially deadly microbial contamination, caused more than half the recent shortages in injectable drugs, according to the Food and Drug Administration.

”Pharmacists are scrambling and desperate,” says Amanda Forster of Premier Inc., a major hospital drug-purchasing cooperative. Five years ago the FDA reported only 55 drugs in short supply; by 2010, there were 178; and this year, Premier predicts, 350. The majority are low-profit generics, but big-name drugs are also affected. Hard-to-make sterile injectables such as anesthesias and chemotherapies are particularly hard hit.
~ from U.S. Drug Shortage: Big Pharma, Big Phuck-Up by Terry J. Allen ~

While Allen doesn't identify one singular problem, corporate profits play a significant role in the contamination situations and the overall scarcity issue. I know I've been harping on the concept of American Exceptionalism today, but here is yet another example of how we behave exceptionally bad.