Imagine arriving at the pharmacy counter, prescription in hand, but the pharmacist shakes their head. Your critical medication is out of stock — indefinitely.
For a growing number of Americans, this nightmare scenario is reality as drug shortages reach crisis levels.
In this three-part series, we explore a public health emergency hiding in plain sight. Through interviews with health care professionals, patients and industry experts, we look at the human cost of these shortages and explore potential solutions.
We introduce you to doctors improvising with dwindling resources, examine the role of corporate middlemen in a brittle supply chain, and share stories of patients whose lives and treatment have been affected.
We’ll explore how razor-thin profit margins, aging infrastructure and corporate interests have converged – potentially making some prescriptions impossible to fill.
Stories
Part One
Remember the prescription drug shortages from last year? The problem hasn't gone away
In the first three months of this year, a record number of drugs were in short supply.
Robin Finley was diagnosed with uterine cancer five years ago and has undergone repeated treatments since it reoccured. Now she struggles with the added worry of wondering whether she can even get her chemotherapy drugs, amid a continuing shortage of key medications.
She was halfway through a regimen last year when one of the two drugs she was taking, carboplatin, became scarce. She said that no one involved with her treatment could tell her exactly what had happened.
"It was unsettling and scary, to have a life-saving drug suddenly disappear, without explanation," said Finley, who lives in Caledonia, New York, south of Rochester. "Without anybody being able to tell me anything because they didn't know anything."
Part Two
Corporate interests and an industry of middlemen may be helping to drive the U.S. drug shortage
As a worsening drug shortage leaves patients scrambling, lawmakers are taking aim at the middlemen at the center of the distribution chain.
Last year, when she was 59, Darcy Filus was diagnosed with breast cancer.
She and her husband, Pete, sat down with her doctor, Kari Wisinski, an oncologist with University of Wisconsin Health who specializes in treating breast cancer.
Because the commonly-used chemotherapy drug carboplatin was in short supply, her oncologist gave her choices about her treatment. She could opt for carboplatin, with the caveat that she could need to switch to another option mid-regimen, or she could elect for an alternative.
Filus, who lives about an hour northwest of Madison, Wisconsin, chose to go with a substitute that had more serious side effects but was readily available. She is not a gambler, she said.
Part Three
Surging demand leaves many without crucial diabetes, ADHD medications
For many patients, these medications have been life-changing, or even life-saving. Getting their hands on them, however, can be another experience entirely - one some patients describe as a frustrating game of 'whack-a-mole'.
The sudden surge in popularity of drugs like Ozempic, driven in part by its weight loss benefits, is contributing to a record-high number of prescription drug shortages and sparking tense exchanges on TikTok.
Tammie Largent-Phillips, a resident of Green Cove Springs, Florida, relies on Ozempic to manage blood sugar spikes caused by her other medications. She first learned of the shortage on the social media app, where it has pitted diabetes patients against weight-loss patients as they compete to secure their treatment from a diminishing supply.
“It was volatile because you had the diabetics who were like, 'Who are you to take our medication? We need it to live!' And then you had the obese patients who were like, 'Well who are you to tell me what I can and I cannot take?' I think it's still a hot-button topic on there,” Largent-Phillips said.
Shortage Tracker
Use our interactive Drug Shortage Tracker to check if your medication is affected.
