Drug Shortages

local hospitals say they're struggling to find adequate supplies of some kinds of senators dianne remix anesthetics steroids and other commonly used drugs problem will allow some really huge rooms brian johnston is an emergency room doctor at an la hospital and asked not to be identified santa barbara top for example which is used to treat seizures often and children know muscular blocking assets were calling him and to have both been in short supply and that's critical because people come into the merger partner we need to put it into the long sleek and then with them and in order to do that we have to paralyze them so make him vomit the biggest problem is finding injectable forms of these drugs the la county health department is also having trouble scott rubin is director of pharmacy services for the department we rent a promise to most recently with ever pam injectable lack of common on the value of the stock paramedic vehicles that are out there a tree in the public and we have a hard time given that juergens says

no one has gone untreated in county hospitals are ambulances but supplies are very low and physicians are being asked to use alternative medications where possible and that's a big problem says er doctor brian johnston especially in emergency rooms where physicians have to act quickly within these drug sometimes you can find a substitute but it requires want to change a standard procedure and introduces a level of risk into all of our operations if you begin to switch drugs the physician the nurses pharmacy as exposed to risk of not getting the right dose marketing at the right time oh miscalculated something johnston is a board member of the california medical association which says the situation is so serious that the federal government needs to act to resolve it pharmacist say there seems to be a number of issues that are combining to create the problem joe duff in the studies the issue for the american society of hell system pharmacists

are expressing for sure just for a variety of reasons anywhere from difficulty obtaining raw materials and manufacturing of oprah book used by several finish coat for product manufacturers manufacture business decisions to continue devon barre also says to keep costs down pharmacies have reduced the amount of product on their shelves he says the system works while until there's a disruption in supply supplies of certain drugs have also been interrupted temporarily by fda enforcement of quality standards devon boss says most of the drugs that are in short supply are inexpensive generic drugs that's a point not lost on physicians says er dr brian johnston i have yet to see all our patentable road which is in short supply their lover of popular drugs expensive antibiotics that i can get all of at the drop of a hat but they don't trust the

penicillin may be hard to find pharmaceutical companies say that doesn't mean they are deliberately cutting back on less profitable drugs alan goldhammer is with the pharmaceutical research and manufacturers of america a group of the nation's leading brand name drug makers love drugs were there were shortages a great many of those that were in short supply were being manufactured by generic companies that were not being manufactured by brand name companies it's impossible to know exactly what role the industry is playing in shortages because it doesn't release manufacturing data la county pharmacist tom drugan says whatever the reasons the shortages are putting even more pressure on a hospital budgets an industry that's been created that based on the shortages that i believe from other entrepreneurial individualistic china go out there and find the drug and then market their services to the community as they pass those drugs on the us they're making money on that is long thought of course will pay more than

we ever paid before but rubin says even with the markup generics are still cheaper than brand name drugs he and other pharmacies don't see any end in sight for the drug shortage problem drugan says scrambling to find the drugs his patients need has just become a way of life for kpcc news i'm elsa set sail