Drugs: will they be provided

Nikki Keisler
Article 3
North County Times
"New Effort to Reduce drug Shortages Small Step"
http://www.nctimes.com/news/national/article_3cb032f7-82f7-54a2-91d1-f29a879171c9.html
The Executive Branch

                 This article is about the shortage of life saving and life prolonging drugs. President Obama has discussed with the Food and Drug Administration about notifying people about the shortages early that what is being done now. Drugs have also gone up in price too, one hospital reported prices going from $26 to $1,200. The FDA reported 178 drug shortages last year. The University of Utah's Drug Information Services counted 211 last year and 232 this year. One option to fix this is to ramp up production, finding alternatives and importation of competing drugs only sold abroad. Ina n administration analysis the main problem was the rise in demand. People also say the economy is to blame. The FDA commissioner said that we can make a difference by expanding our network of early warnings.

                This connects to what we are studying in class because the Food and Drug administration is part of the Executive branch. The FDA protects the public health through food safety and drug safety. The FDA also enforces laws in the public help service act.  They control the drugs that get to hospitals to treat people. This also connects to what we are studying because President Obama is involved and he is a part of the executive branch. The President also appoints the Commissioner of the FDA.

                This connects to my life because when they were having the swine flu out break there was a shortage of the vaccine. The FDA controlled the vaccine and their was not enough for everyone. Even when they had just produced it, it was still a shortage. People couldn't get the vaccine because of the shortage and got the swine flu. One hundred and fifty people died for the swine influenza.

               My opinion on this is that the FDA should expand the network of early warnings. For example, if a person had cancer and they were scheduled to have chemotherapy on one day and they got an early warning that the was a shortage of supplies then, the doctors could start the person on a less effective treatment that could keep them stable until they could get the drugs. So if the doctors got an early warning then the would be more prepared to treat the person in a different way. If they didn't do this the doctor wouldn't realize that they couldn't start the therapy until it was too late. This would cause a lot of people to die or become even more ill.