New AMA policy reflects frustration over ongoing drug shortages

CHICAGO — Responding to ongoing national drug shortages that threaten patient care and safety, physicians gathered at the Annual Meeting of the American Medical Association (AMA) today adopted policy declaring drug shortages an urgent public health crisis. The new declaration strengthens existing AMA policy outlining the physician prescription for a comprehensive solution to ongoing drug shortages.

Many of the drugs currently in shortage are everyday products required for patient care in all medical settings, such as sterile intravenous products containing saline or other fluids. Shortages of these basic products, and their containers, increased following hurricane damage to production facilities in Puerto Rico, leaving the health care system scrambling for options that were either limited or risky.