With Anti-Cancer Drugs in Short Supply, American Oncologists Are Left with the Harrowing Choice of Letting Their Patients Die
Every doctor takes an oath starting out in the profession that whatever they do, they won't ever do anything to make a situation worse than it is. Predicting what can make a situation worse though can be very difficult in a situation where there are factors at play that happen to be outside of the doctor's influence. Take the situation for instance, where oncologists need to treat their patients for a particularly dangerous and fatal kind of cancer called AM leukemia. Thousands of Americans receive diagnosis for this every year. Now oncologists may begin their treatment of these patients with traditional anti cancer drugs that are sure to help them. What should they do though if midway through the chemotherapy course, the patient should run out of a supply of these drugs and so should every hospital and pharmacy in the state? That would be a more dangerous situation for the patient than it would have been if he had never been started on chemotherapy in the first place.
The name of the drug is Cytarabine; and it's been the sole hope of people with this kind of cancer for 40 years. Once a patient has started out on a regimen of anti cancer drugs that includes this drug, they have a 50% chance of surviving their cancer and living a normal life again. If they are denied the drug for any reason, they have no choice but to die. And yet, the country is running dangerously low on Cytarabine . It actually happens to be on the drug shortage list the FDA keeps.
Doctors and pharmacies around the country are having to ration out their supplies of anti cancer drugs among all their patients. As if these poor people didn't have enough to worry about being afflicted with a fatal form of cancer; they have to now worry about making do with half doses - so that doctors don't have to turn anyone away empty-handed. Some patients just receive the second best drug on the market, which isn't any good anyway.
Doctors don't really know that rationing drugs out like this will do any good; they're flying blind. How do they remain faithful to their oath when there is no precedent for what they're being put through? Sometimes, they just give whatever supplies of the anti cancer drugs they have to the youngest patients – or the ones with the best chance of survival. Doctors in places like California and Texas, who have always prided themselves on running the world's best medical services are suddenly finding themselves serving in third world conditions.
These particular anti cancer drugs are manufactured in America by only three companies. And all they will say is that they are facing capacity constraints, whatever that means. There really is no actual solution to this problem in sight; and the worst part is, that there are several other anticancer drugs that are in terrible short supply too – bleomycin, etoposide, cisplatin and others.
