Short Supply? In America?

Why is there a shortage of Carboplatin and Cisplatin -- Chemotherapy staples?

Rationed medicine? Withholding medical care? These are the outcomes of a drastic shortage of key drugs needed for chemotherapy treatments. The shortages are not from insurance companies reluctant to pay for care. They are not from highly-complex, designer drugs which are difficult to produce. These medications are GENERIC. They can be produced by ANY licensed pharmaceutical manufacturer. They are simple to produce in quantity. In fact, a vial of Carboplatin costs approximately $15. That's the problem. The purchase price is so low that manufacturers don't make as much money as they can from maintenance drugs which people have to take regularly for years or high-priced proprietary medicines. The consequence is that cancer patients are DYING from the lack of these simple products.

What's worse is that hospitals with limited supplies are sometimes making decisions about who gets treatment and who does not. Stage IV patients (who are often labeled as "incurable" even though many documented cases of remission happen every day) are denied care because they are statistically less likely to survive long-term. The truth is that these patients are the most likely to suffer degraded health when faced with ANY delay in their medical treatment. Discrimination against patients based upon the stage of their disease is unethical.

"This is out of our hands."

"Private manufacturers can make choices."

"There is nothing we can do."

It's just NOT true!