ACP: Prescription drug shortages are a public health crisis that needs action now

Medicines play a huge role in enhancing and sustaining the lives of millions of people, but they don’t help if patients can’t get them due to shortages in the United States.

The American College of Physicians (ACP) has published a new position paper declaring drug shortages are a public health crisis that needs attention now.

“The health care industry has been at the forefront of market disruptions in past decades,” said the paper, “Bolstering the Medication Supply Chain and Ameliorating Medication Shortages,” by Josh Serchen, MPP, David Hilden, MD, MPH, and Jenny R. Silberger, MD.

The problem has been pronounced in the past year, with shortages ranging from mixed amphetamine salts to treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, to the glucagon-like peptide-1 drugs prescribed to patients with Type 2 diabetes and obesity. Even the weather is a factor: In the last year, hurricanes hurt production of intravenous fluids at manufacturers in North Carolina and Florida, the paper said.

Since 2012, pharmaceutical manufacturers must notify the U.S. Food and Drug Administration when manufacturing slows and drugs go into shortage. But they are not required to explain any reasons for shortages, and the federal agency has no means to compel manufacturers to speed up production.

“It is clear from the current state and recent history that federal efforts to mitigate the short-term effects of drug shortages, let alone begin to address some of the fundamental drivers and root causes of shortages, are insufficient,” the ACP paper said.

As a result, patients have delayed treatments, or sometimes forego treatments. Physicians and pharmacists may prescribe less frequently used options that put patients at risk. Hospitals strain resources managing shortages and identifying alternative treatments, costing millions of dollars and labor hours each year, according to ACP.

This slideshow presents some of the evidence cited by ACP, and the College’s prescription for policies that could help make drugs more available across the nation. "Bolstering the Medication Supply Chain and Ameliorating Medication Shortages: A Position Paper From the American College of Physicians," was published first in Annals of Internal Medicine.