Cancer medications running into dangerously short supply

Doctors scrambling to find acceptable alternatives for patients-cancer medication desperately needed by sick children and adults in the United States are running in short supply, undermining the ability of U.S. doctors to administer treatments. Top U.S. oncologists warn that for millions of people, this is a matter of life and death.
6/8/2011
LOS ANGELES, CA

(Catholic Online) - "It's still uncomfortable to say that this is ideally what we'd like to do, but unfortunately we don't have it," Dr. Michael Link, a pediatric oncologist at the Mayo Clinic and current ASCO president said. Link has called it a disheartening crisis.

"You can imagine the conversation and I'm sure they're going on all over -- doctors have to tell their patients or their patients' parents that we can't give them the proven drug because we don't have it," Link adds.

Many drugs are scarce as there is no incentive for drug makers to manufacture low-cost generics, which have slim profit margins for pharmaceutical companies. Doctors do not expect that equation to change any time soon, making them scramble to find acceptable alternatives or to ration or delay treatment when they cannot. the rest