What you have to do is ensure there is supply. What they are doing now is negotiating the price down so low, providing only one supplier for some of the drugs, that if there is a contamination in that plant, it shuts down the entire production of that. Then you have to get back into the supply chain at the factory, so you may have to wait three months before that drug goes into production again. During that period of time, the pharmacies have to revert to other drugs, something similar, for their supplies.
It's like olmesartan and all of the ARBs. Now all of a sudden there is a whole group of drugs that are no longer suppliable because they can't be provided by the plants and the factories anymore, so it just mushrooms and compounds.
For some of the products, like metformin, there used to be a number of different suppliers, but now they have gone down to just one, I believe. That's all we have in the pharmacy. It's a very common anti-diabetic drug, and there's no one else supplying it, so if there's a contamination in that factory, we're done. Our customers, our patients, are without.
People don't realize the severity of this. We have had heart medications.... The ear medication is just a minor one, but when you go to your doctor and the doctor says, “I'm sorry. We can't supply it. Use vinegar and water”, and you're facing the possibility of hearing loss.... This happened to our son. That's why it's very close to my heart. It's happening all over.
There was a drug for women who had bladder control problems. It was negotiated down so low in price that the companies stopped producing it. There is no medication for this.