Drug shortages
Shortages of intravenous saline and other fluids are beginning to improve, according to the Food and Drug Administration.
A bipartisan group of 31 senators last week urged Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Scott Gottlieb, M.D., to convene the Drug Shortages Task Force created by the FDA Safety and Innovation Act of 2012, stakeholders and other relevant agencies to report on the root causes of drug shortages.
The Food and Drug Administration identified 39 new drug and biological product shortages in 2017, up from 26 in 2016, and 41 ongoing shortages from prior years, according to the agency’s latest annual report on the issue.
The American Medical Association today adopted a policy declaring drug shortages an urgent public health crisis.
The undersigned groups thank the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) for the opportunity to comment on its proposed rule regarding controlled substances quotas. Although we support DEA’s efforts to combat diversion, we are concerned that the proposed rule is focused on diversion to the exclusion…
We concur with the DEA that setting quotas for the production of opioid medications can be an effective step in “preventing the accumulation of controlled substances in amounts exceeding legitimate need,” and therefore reduce the chance that these powerful medications will be diverted for non-…