I find this report from ABCNews very disturbing:
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said it has been alerted to the first manufacturing shortage of an unnamed drug due to the deadly novel coronavirus outbreak that began in China and has now reached the U.S..
FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn said the agency has been “closely monitoring” the medical product supply chain “with the expectation” that the outbreak of the novel coronavirus would “likely” have an impact.
“A manufacturer has alerted us to a shortage of a human drug that was recently added to the drug shortages list,” Hahn said in a statement Thursday night. “The manufacturer just notified us that this shortage is related to a site affected by coronavirus. The shortage is due to an issue with manufacturing of an active pharmaceutical ingredient used in the drug.”
Have they never heard of second sourcing? If the issue is intellectual property, perhaps we should be re-thinking that. If harm due to the lack of availability of a pharmaceutical induced by poor planning is not actionable, it certainly should be. Supply chains aren’t supposed to be Rube Goldbergs. When they are it’s negligence.
I dont think a week goes by that I dont have a drug shortage in something. It will be interesting to see if I can tell the difference between these shortages and our ongoing ones. I will know it is really serious if it affects drugs that are still on patent. (We have single or just dual sources for so many of our off patent drugs that it is a regular scramble. We have been able to turn to Europe as a source in the past but I dont know if Europe is as dependent on China as we are. Some of the European drugs also take some time to learn.)
Steve
The grotesque mismanagement, actual sabotage, of the American economy by our corrupt, depraved, idiotic Ruling Class is astonishing. We have the worst Ruling Class in history, not the Bourbons, not Nero and Caligula, ours.
The Chinese government’s response to COVID-19 is exemplary. Contrast their response to that of every other government on the planet. The idiot Friedman, like a broken clock, was right once. China has a better government, much more competent, actually patriotic, caring for its people, and minimally corrupt.
Wuhan flu is a virus. What sort of drug would work on it other than to possibly alleviate symptoms?