About 8500 Idahoans are diagnosed with cancer every year, according to the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare. They are among the hundreds of thousands of cancer patients in the United States facing an ongoing nationwide cancer drug shortage.
The shortage includes cisplatin, carboplatin and methotrexate which can be used to treat many cancers including ovarian, lung and blood cancers.
Shortages are nothing new to the drug industry in America, but these critical cancer drugs have reached an all-time low in recent months.
Because of the way the Food and Drug Administration classifies generic and name-brand medicines, Erin Fox with University of Utah Health says manufacturers often compete with one another for affordability.
“It leads to kind of a race to the bottom in pricing. And so then, you know, companies don't have a lot of extra money to invest in their factories, like backup plans or redundancy in their supply chains,” said Fox in an interview.
Chief Medical Officer at the American Society of Clinical Oncology Dr. Julie Gralow says some hospitals can get advanced notice and stockpile certain drugs.
Dr. Gralow said in a phone interview, “I think that was a bigger part of the problem. We didn't distribute the drug evenly. Some sites have a lot. Some sites have very little or none.”
Fox and Dr. Gralow say people affected should contact their representatives.
Fox said, “I think it's important for them to hear about how this problem is affecting you. It's because it's––it's really a very bipartisan issue. Everyone needs medical treatment.”
