Oncology Drug Shortages Proposed Legislation

nancygt

Please weigh in with your senators !
Amy Klobuchar and Bob Casey have proposed legislation to address oncology drug shoratges. If you research, you will find that there are serious ongoing oncology drug shorastges (If you are curious, there is full picture on FDA Drug Shortage website). This legislation will give early warning to healthcare providers and patients. Dr. Michael Link, Pres. of the ASCO American Society of Clinical Oncology says that "the oncology community continues to experience severe and worsening shortages of critical drugs and may threaten patient's lives as .. as without these critical components..not having these drugs may result in inferior results". These drugs are well established, effective and many have been around for 50 years or more: they include but are not limited to
Cisplatin
Carboplatin
Doxirubicin
etoposide
leucovorin
nitrogen mustard
vincristine
Most of these are on the OV Ca list and the first three are standards for Ovarian and Uterine Cancer.
All of these drugs, fortunately are ones that manufacturers plan to continue producing but article says shortages may have arisen from avialiability of raw material, lack of manufacturing capabilitie or mergers/acquisitions -one article said mfrs got blidsided by inreasing demand.
This situation is very personal to me as a stage 4 USPC patient-I had my second recurrence diagnosed on 10/26 and we wanted to use Cisplatin/Doxirubicin and waited until after the first of the year where mfrs. were starting to ship more quantities (but all remain on FDA shortage list). I started chemo on Jan. 20th and the two PET scnas did show real growth if not an alarming amount. This period was an agonizing time for me and I was lucky since my oncologist is a single doc practice in modest size town/medical community.
So again I urge you to read what you can about this legislation and if you agree, please let your senator know he needs to pay attention to this. I have written mine and told tthem I fully intend to make this post and later post how they voted.
Ha!Ha! maybe they could convert a few factories from Viagra type drugs as all the ads you see certainly make me think they have plenty of manufacturing capacity there.

poopergirl14052

are they crazy!!!
these are life saving drugs they are talking about here. God forbid any of them or their family get this dreaded illness. Thanks for the post and I will be writing my NY state leaders on this matter. You are soo right, there are many other uncessary drugs they can downsize, some downright unessary to see on tv with two people in a bathtub

mopar

HOW AWFUL!
Priorities may play a huge role in this situation. And I'm concerned that this is just the beginning of many obstacles that will surface with this new 'health care' bill. I'm amazed at how many new drugs I see advertised each week - from the 'Viagra' type meds to birth control pills that stop your period for months at a time. Lord knows how many young women are 'inconvenienced' when their monthly cycle interferes with their social life (I'm not talking about the true medical situations where birth control may be of assistance).

I will get on this ASAP. Thanks for letting us know!

Monika

kikz

mopar said:

HOW AWFUL!
Priorities may play a huge role in this situation. And I'm concerned that this is just the beginning of many obstacles that will surface with this new 'health care' bill. I'm amazed at how many new drugs I see advertised each week - from the 'Viagra' type meds to birth control pills that stop your period for months at a time. Lord knows how many young women are 'inconvenienced' when their monthly cycle interferes with their social life (I'm not talking about the true medical situations where birth control may be of assistance).

I will get on this ASAP. Thanks for letting us know!

Monika

Thanks for the heads up.
I emailed my senators who both happen to be women. I hope they would have a better understanding of the importance of this issue to us.

Karen