Political Quotes

“I say to our colleague from Oklahoma, himself a physician, that he will be very keenly interested in this issue of prescription drug shortages. This is a problem that has been brought to my attention by Marylanders, leaders of great institutions such as the University of Maryland and Hopkins, as well as family members who care for someone and find that, although there has been the right diagnosis and there is even the right drug to care for that problem--like the dread ``cancer'' word--the drug is not available. So you can imagine the last thing you want to hear is that your child has cancer, and then the worst thing you want to hear is that there is a shortage of that drug to take care of that child. That is not because it has not been developed, not because there has not been a scientific breakthrough, but because there has been a manufacturing problem or because the company stopped making the drug when it was no longer profitable. That is inexcusable. The bill before us does something about it. In 2011 we had more than 250 drug shortages. That is not incidents, that is 250 drugs that were in shortage. Half of the drugs that experience a shortage go into shortage multiple times. This drug shortage threatens public health by preventing patients and physicians from accessing needed medications.…”