I was pleased to learn this morning that the president will issue an executive order to resolve critical shortages of drugs for treating life-threatening illnesses, including cancer.
Shortages kill. To be more precise, the illnesses do the killing, but shortages of drugs and consequent inability to treat the illnesses prevent doctors from prolonging life.
My sister was a victim of shortages. One drug (the most effective in my sister's case) was withdrawn from the market because it didn't prove effective in very many cases. Translation: not enough customers. The next drug selected by the oncologist simply couldn't be located because of shortages.
We will never know how much the shortages curtailed my sister's life. Would she have lived a day longer? A month? A year or more? We have no way of knowing.
Still, we know that shortages have increased greatly in recent years, endangering thousands of lives. This shouldn't happen in America.
It's time to do something about it. If Congress won't act, then the president must.
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