Attention

The opinions expressed by columnists are their own and do not represent our advertisers

Thursday, March 22, 2012

Lawmakers Probe Pharmacy Ties to Price Gouging

(Reuters) - Lawmakers are investigating three shadowy pharmacies in Maryland and North Carolina for diverting critical but scarce drugs from patients to wholesalers, who are then able to resell the medicine at sometimes big markups.

Elijah Cummings, the senior Democrat on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, began a probe in October to discover why certain companies were selling cancer drugs at more than a hundred times their normal cost.

Shortages of hundreds of drugs including cisplatin, a highly effective treatment for testicular cancer, and fluorouracil for colon and other cancers have helped create a lucrative shadow market.

The Food and Drug Administration has said the number of drugs in short supply, which also include anesthesiology and nutrition medications, had risen to 220 in 2011 from 56 in 2006.

More

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I have been fighting cancer, Breast and brain since 2009.
They better not run out of what I need. Don't let these people do what they want. The black market is BAD.

Anonymous said...

The FDA is causing the problem.