By Bob Vosseller and Chris Lundy
OCEAN COUNTY – A county official wants to see the federal government step up and take action on the current prescription drug shortage.
Joseph H. Vicari, Director of the Ocean County Board of Commissioners, said the drug shortage continues to impact patients from coast to coast, and the federal government needs to step in and ensure that residents have access to their vital medications.
Published reports state the shortages are impacting life-saving medicines including powerful drugs used in cancer treatments.
According to a report by the American Society of Health System Pharmacists, Congress recently ordered manufacturers to create risk management plans to be proactive about supply chain problems, rather than reactive. However, more than half of these manufacturing facilities still do not have plans in place.
These plans will allow doctors to prescribe drugs that they expect will be available because the manufacturers are more responsible, rather than prescribing something that later is in short supply because the company failed to prepare for the worst.
The ASHP also recommended that Medicare and Medicaid give add-on payments to critical generic drug manufacturers as long as they have a plan to have plenty of availability.
The government should also spread its purchasing among many manufacturers to keep them all providing drugs actively, according to the ASHP. The federal government should also financially support manufacturers that create a buffer of supplies.
Vicari, who is the liaison to the Ocean County Office of Senior Services, recently wrote a letter to Senators Robert Menendez and Cory Booker asking them to “do everything they can” to end the pharmaceutical shortages. Congressmen Chris Smith and Jeff Van Drew also received Vicari’s letter.
“How can the strongest economy on Earth be facing a shortage of these vital pharmaceuticals? It is well past time that the United States becomes self-sufficient and capable of producing all of the drugs needed by our aging population,” Vicari stated in his letter.
The shortages are especially harmful to Ocean County’s large senior citizen population, Vicari said in his letter. “Ocean County is home to one of the largest concentrations of senior citizens in the entire nation. These older adults are facing a crisis – the continuing and growing shortage of critical prescription medications.”
Vicari added details about issues across the nation, not specifically at local medical facilities: “doctors report that they are reducing dosages of these life-saving drugs in an effort to treat as many patients as possible. Across the country, hospitals are delaying or even cancelling needed surgeries only because the necessary drugs are not available. Our seniors are looking for answers, and so am I.”
“I encourage you to do everything you can to help rectify this ongoing crisis. Access to medical care and needed medicine is a basic human right,” Vicari said. “Please help us ensure that our seniors – and younger families, too – do not have to worry about their health simply because a necessary prescription is not available.”
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