As many know I'm partially disabled. I can work and function ok as long as I have my medications. Lately with the crackdown on all the "pill miills" here and changing law have fixed our pill mill epidemic. We were having 10,s of thousands of out of stater coming here going to a sham dr and taking 5 times the medicaiton a local would get back to WV, VA,TN GA. Welll we instituted the following rules.

-Limit of 180 pill on any C2 prescription
-A local resident Dr.must own a pain mng clinic, no more lawyers can own them (This helped a ton because the majority of pill mills were owned by lawyers.
-No Rx dispensing at Dr's offices
- A national database that tracks scripts (Prevents Dr shopping and patients transfering from questionable Dr's.

So as far as pill mills and distribution we prescribed 80% of the C2's in the country in 10. In 11 prescriptions droped 97% and everyone has declaired the pill mill war over.....Except the DEA which is raiding CVS's and Walgreens for merely filling too many prescriptions. Mind you these are legal proper prescription, they say they filled to many and pulled their Controlled substance license. First at 2 CVS's, then at their main Dist. Dist. challanged and lost last month getting banned 2 years from distributing any CS's. Then they just raided 6 walgreens and say the same thing that the investigating the distributer for WG. This insane these are not shady operations. These are legit pharmacies that verify scripts and do everyhting by the book. So having my meds hard to get because they are extremley cheap. Taking my meds cost me $200 a month, a substiture medicaiton would cost $1600. All the cancer patients and people in real pain can't get their meds and are flooding our ER's. So after researching this it leads me further into many doctors talking about the shortage is not just C2 scripts, but vacines, anything IV, cancer pills, etc.. Hospital phamacist are having to buy their drugs on the black market and theres no signs of it improving. They'll take a medicaiton thats made by 2 people and both will quit making it and tell no one. They don't even have to tell the FDA were not making this anymore.

I almost wonder if a class action lawsuit should be file or whats going on. Why can't cancer patients get their IV meds? I know why the controlled substances are short, thats a given. But why AIDS antivirils? Why Anastesia, and a huge list of other drugs. Numerous deaths have occured just because hospitals can't get their medications and people are dying becaue of the counterfits and having to use less effective meds. This just makes me worry because if I can get my meds I can just lay up in bed and I'm not dead. But there are medication you can die from if not taken regularly. It scares me these people are playing games with our medicaion. Have any of you other guys with serious mediical conditions seen any of the effects yet?

 

I quite like this article http://covertrationingblog.com/healthcare-policy/whats-really-causing-the-drug-shortages

could go into a discussion of how BigPharma is not making any money off of generic drugs, but they got so many people on other medications, they are getting their fair share. There are legal matters and then there are ethical matters. Playing with peoples lives is apparently legal, but the ethics of it is quite questionable. Also, check out the drug situation in Greece, now that the country has no money...

 

Unfortunately, I could not interpret your vast mass of writing. If you're after 'meds' without a prescription, however, then consider www.unitedpharmacies.com

 

This is the first I've heard of the pill shortage. I must have been living under a rock.

Hospital phamacist are having to buy their drugs on the black market

really? I believe there's also a shortage of critically needed human donor organs; are they getting those off the black market as well? When I put myself in the position of a hospital pharmacist, I can't even come close to justifying selling my patients potentially deadly stuff that may or may not be a legit medicine for their ailments.

 

Thing that aggravates me is not that they are not making a profit, they are just not making a huge profit on some of these drugs. For most companies over 100% is considered a good product, but these guys want more.

Given this is a public health issue (and they are making obscene profits at the expense of public good) it works down to either legislation or a state owned pharma. I would prefer private enterprise, but since they are not stepping up to the plate, and this really is costing lives, other measures may be needed.

Organ donors are mixing apples and oranges again, given that the only source for organs is living people. With stem cells that could change, but we're not there yet. With drugs it is nothing but greed.

 

Should the government tell a business what products they must sell? Why aren't "new" business' stepping in to fill the void?

As far as the individual states having their own manufacturing and distribution, good luck on that. What governor is going to stand up and say a citizen can not buy medications from another state? That is not very wise. The same can and will apply nationally if those products are only produced offshore. What bureaucrat or politician in Washington wants to see their face on the news concerning denying some citizen of the needed medication?

Does anyone know how long it takes a medical product to reach the masses? Something like a generic drug ... not some experimental device.

Maybe the threat of class action suits are calling the shots more than we think.

 

Medication shortage has been around for a while now. Clearly it is the generic (cheap) drugs that disappear first. The pharmaceutical companies have free reign over what they do and how. FDA and regulatory bodies have zero effect. I was trying to find a documentary "Big Pharma, Big Money" on line, but cannot. It talks about their recent strategy of directly targeting people and forgoing doctors. It is interesting as in Canada you cannot advertise prescription medications on TV, while in the states you can. So every person is a customer. I think that the companies had a bad run with a few medications that left them with some hefty law suits, so this is their payback to the consumer.

Granted it is expensive to put a medication out on the market, but it is even more expensive to put untested crap out on the market and convince people that it is good for them. I would rather drink moonshine, at least I know the risks.

Mind you, people buy into the commercials, I would never believe into a magic pill, why does everyone else seem to? Toughen up, people, life is depressing anyway, if you want to mellow out, there are natural remedies.

p.s. a new drug company? with massive lobbying by existing ones? death by suicide...

 

Been there, done that. I had the same family doctor for 20 years. Fourth generation doctor with 3 kids in doctor school. Apparently he did something wrong and somebody dropped a house on him a la Wizard of Oz. He went from well respected, long established, multi-generational family practice, to out-of-business, overnight. I spent most of the last 12 months doctor shopping. I even had a prescription to shop for a doctor! I don't expect any repurcussions because not being treated and not getting any prescriptions is not a punishable offence, just a damn big waste of time.

I believe that the pill mill problem is well under control after going through 36 doctors before I found one that would prescribe C3 drugs.

 

Should the government tell a business what products they must sell? Why aren't "new" business' stepping in to fill the void?

As far as the individual states having their own manufacturing and distribution, good luck on that. What governor is going to stand up and say a citizen can not buy medications from another state? That is not very wise. The same can and will apply nationally if those products are only produced offshore. What bureaucrat or politician in Washington wants to see their face on the news concerning denying some citizen of the needed medication?

Does anyone know how long it takes a medical product to reach the masses? Something like a generic drug ... not some experimental device.

Maybe the threat of class action suits are calling the shots more than we think.

Given this is a very basic heath issue, yes, the government needs to be involved. Free market only goes so far, and people are being denied needed medication due to irresponsible behavior on the part of manufacturers. This is a fact, not a hypothesis. Some of the medication, such as basic calcium supplements (injectable) are very basic, but without them people die, and very quickly.

If the manufacturers will not step up and be responsible, and pharma companies have been among the worst, then it is the governments job. Pharma will take (as in claim) 3rd party research by the government and/or universities as their own, and drop old tested products because they are not profitable enough (note, they are profitable, but these companies only consider 1000% profits worth while).

So the choices are simple, do you want the government in the biz, or do these companies do the right thing. They will not do it willingly or voluntarily, and will gripe about anything the government does to protect the public interest. This is the public interest, it is not merely a commodity. If they want the cream, they also need to take the lower end.

Or we could have a state run pharma company, and help bring down some obscene medical costs. Unfortunately I don't have faith in the government to do it properly. We are not talking about forcing them to do it at a loss, just do their jobs for the public interest.

 

Bill,

Where there is a profit to be made, someone will step up and do what is necessary to make that profit.

When the government tells someone what they will charge for a product, those people have the right to stop making that product. As far as doctors disappearing, back in the 1990s when Hillary Care was being proposed, my doctor told me it those restrictions were put on him, he would retire rather than practice medicine. Does that mean he didn't care? Nope. It meant too much government interference for his tastes.

The same applies for all business aspects. Too much government interference is not good.

It's easy to blame the lobbyists for the major pill mills as the causal effect of no comptetition. The government will allow importation of any pill that it deems for the good of the country. The citizens will demand it, and the politicos will succumb to the pressure. The government's excuse would be the lack of manufacturers here in this country ... probably using key words like "costs too much to produce" to incite their base.

The government isn't protecting the companies from foreign competition and the American companies can't compete, price wise, with the foreign competition. Americans will buy the less expensive drugs, just like they shop at Walmart.

I guess we will wait till enough American's die from overseas drugs before there will be any action by the government. I hope no one I know ... what am I saying, my medication comes from the VA and they are all generic ... and I have no idea of who manufactures them.

 

I go through this song and dance every month. I have severe back pain and a thingy called nueropathy that I am addicted to morphine for. It's just another indicator that our government has pretty much turned against us. Somehow, the criminals always get their guns and drugs fairly easily but us law abidins' get treated like criminals. I even have to take a drug test to make sure the drugs are IN ME! That is how they can tell I'm not selling them.

You have to pay somebody $15 a month now to watch your back and keep your identity from being stolen. I just had to change all my credit cards and bank account because I got hacked. Nobody's going to jail and nobody's even looking for them so it makes sense for them to do it again and again.

We pay some of the highest taxes in the world. What for? So someone can steal half my 401k and devastate my property value because it was deemed absolutely necessary in Washington DC that people that could not afford them be given home mortgages.

Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain) once wrote a piece that was framed as a recent immigrant to the United States writing a letter home. In it he proclaims his utter happiness that the way things work in America is that, instead of the government taking half of everything a farmer produces or what a worker earns, the Americans have a system where everyone contributes "just 10%" and there is prosperity everywhere!

We've come a LONG way since them days fo' sho'.

 

people will buy the drugs that are covered by their insurance (if they have it), otherwise, yes, they will buy generic, if it does the same thing as the brand name, what is the difference? Generic or not, there are generic brand manufacturers in US, where are your drugs actually produced, generic or not, you cannot be sure. It's like a swiss watch movement.

This is not a matter of business as lives are at stake. If the problem is not solved, people will try to find their own solutions, and that is undesirable.

I could go on... but until those who run the companies and the government actually experience what regular people go through, nothing will change. They do not have to worry about medication shortages or anything else so there no empathy...

 

Bill,

Where there is a profit to be made, someone will step up and do what is necessary to make that profit.

When the government tells someone what they will charge for a product, those people have the right to stop making that product. As far as doctors disappearing, back in the 1990s when Hillary Care was being proposed, my doctor told me it those restrictions were put on him, he would retire rather than practice medicine. Does that mean he didn't care? Nope. It meant too much government interference for his tastes.

The same applies for all business aspects. Too much government interference is not good.

It's easy to blame the lobbyists for the major pill mills as the causal effect of no comptetition. The government will allow importation of any pill that it deems for the good of the country. The citizens will demand it, and the politicos will succumb to the pressure. The government's excuse would be the lack of manufacturers here in this country ... probably using key words like "costs too much to produce" to incite their base.

The government isn't protecting the companies from foreign competition and the American companies can't compete, price wise, with the foreign competition. Americans will buy the less expensive drugs, just like they shop at Walmart.

I guess we will wait till enough American's die from overseas drugs before there will be any action by the government. I hope no one I know ... what am I saying, my medication comes from the VA and they are all generic ... and I have no idea of who manufactures them.

So how many people have to die waiting? One is too many. If it were you or yours, I suspect you would be less tolerant. It is easy to advocate free market if it is not your life on the line or someone you love. Again, this is not a commodity, but a public health issue. I have no trouble separating the two.

It isn't a case of going to generic either. Many of these items simply do not exist because of the profit margins.

 

Unfortunately, I could not interpret your vast mass of writing. If you're after 'meds' without a prescription, however, then consider www.unitedpharmacies.com

No all my meds are scripted by specialists. I can get them in a fast enough time for myself plus I knoiw others on similar meds I could borrow from if i needed to. But I worry about cancer patients and senior citizens that can't go out all day after day to find thier meds.

 

It is easy to advocate free market if it is not your life on the line or someone you love. Again, this is not a commodity, but a public health issue.

I agree.

Ordinarily I would agree with joejester, but it's true what you say.

But where do we draw the line? What do you think about the mayor of NYC outlawing sodas and table salt (loosely)? Is that a public health issue? Some say yes, some say no. What will they say when it evolves into "you have to go the government grocery and take whatever they give you"?

 

Should the government tell a business what products they must sell? Why aren't "new" business' stepping in to fill the void?

As far as the individual states having their own manufacturing and distribution, good luck on that. What governor is going to stand up and say a citizen can not buy medications from another state? That is not very wise. The same can and will apply nationally if those products are only produced offshore. What bureaucrat or politician in Washington wants to see their face on the news concerning denying some citizen of the needed medication?

Does anyone know how long it takes a medical product to reach the masses? Something like a generic drug ... not some experimental device.

Maybe the threat of class action suits are calling the shots more than we think.

Heres the problem were having. In our state we have two types of pharmacies. Also with current laws you can order a C2 prescription mailorder unlless you have insurance which kills me. So far the biggest shortages seem to be for C2 generic pain medications. So they stipped mnf 1 and have put a hold on the other. These are the only 2 medicaiton afforadable being $1 a pill, and $1.25 a pill. To substitute them for another medicaiton like a long term med of the same chemical or different medicaion will cost to rise to $12-$15 per pill.But the shortages are across the board, heart medications, BP, muscle relaxers, beta blockers, etc... Thats what I know from personal experience. What I've researchd is that all meds expecially IV hospital drugs are in severe shortage, expecially cancer drugs. The black market drugs they are buying are legit medicine, but they are having to use any method to get it, AKA mexico, Honduras, etc..... They make a killing of these medications and since its always the generics that are out many people believe this iis just to get people takingmore expensive meds. Like myself I have 2 meds i can get that change prive between $150- $350 to get both. but anything else would cost $1200-$2000 a month.

Ok what I was saying we have 2 types of pharmacies here, the Legit ones and drug dealer pharmacies. Legit being WG, CVS, Publix, Sams Club, Chains... The private ones we call drug dealer pharmacies because instead of charging $1 a pill like mormal their prices change hourly and fluxuate from $4.75-$10 each. They know the rich that can afford buy em, and the drug dealers don't care cause their reselling em for $30. But these private pharmacies don't have limits. WG for instance can order 2000 pills a week per store. These private pharmacies can order 70,000 at a time. Then they create a shortage and sit back and charge 500%-1000% markup.They'll even say its supply and demand. I wonder how long till this is heart medicaiton and BP medication like my norvasc.

 

people will buy the drugs that are covered by their insurance (if they have it), otherwise, yes, they will buy generic, if it does the same thing as the brand name, what is the difference? Generic or not, there are generic brand manufacturers in US, where are your drugs actually produced, generic or not, you cannot be sure. It's like a swiss watch movement.

This is not a matter of business as lives are at stake. If the problem is not solved, people will try to find their own solutions, and that is undesirable.

I could go on... but until those who run the companies and the government actually experience what regular people go through, nothing will change. They do not have to worry about medication shortages or anything else so there no empathy...

Actually there are strict guidlines and laws you can't move medications across country lines or else I'd just mail my scrips to mexico everymonth. The big pharmies got **** when the senior citiznes started arangeing prescription filling busses at the border of canada and mexico. They even change hte name of the same medicaiton and sell it for a ton more. My mugrane meds i cant' afford cost $280 for 9 tablets here. In EU they call it imigraine in stead of immitrex and charge $42 for a box of 9 tablets. Thats an insane markup.

 

You guys should get a NHS, like us.

 

You guys should get a NHS, like us.

Does your NHS pay for R&D of new drugs or does it wait for countries with free market pharma to do that, and then reap the benefits?

or at least that would have been my point if asked a few years ago.

Right about now though I think I'm ready to change my tune. I think we've come far enough in the development of drugs. We've all but wiped out the system of checks & balances that keeps population explosion at bay, and whatever benefit the competitive marketplace provided to get us here, has since soured. All it is now is a competition to see which company can screw the public the hardest. There aren't any obtainable useful cures left so they're inventing ailments (obesity, ADD, shift work disorder, et. endless al.) so they can invent cures for them. We need to shift into reverse gear and go back 15-20 years.

 

Yeah, it reaps the benefits.

But it's free too.