Best Of MetaFilter

Posts tagged with pharmacies

Why is Maalox so hard to get suddenly?

PharmacyPharmacy by Army Medicine (cc by)

There are many reasons, but the primary one is that the massive series of mergers and buyouts in the pharmaceutical industry over the past ten years has meant that companies have consolidated their manufacturing facilities. Where in the past you might have had six or seven companies manufacturing a certain drug in eight or ten factories around the country, you now have one or two companies making it at two or three sites. If one of those sites goes down do to equipment problems or regulatory shutdown for improper safety standards (that's what happened to Novartis -- they got hydrocodone in their Excedrin bottles, allegedly), that means the other sites (if any) can't keep up with the increased demand.

RockSteady explains why we're seeing more and more prescription drug shortages lately, and why it's a big problem.

07/28/13
by jessamyn

Highlighting the best bits from the MetaFilter universe

MetaFilter started as a community weblog in 1999, later added question and answers, then music by members, jobs, projects by members, a podcast, and finally an area dedicated to meetups.

View Best Of Archives

feed  Subscribe to the Feed

twitter  Follow at Twitter

tumblr  Follow at Tumblr

facebook  Like at Facebook

Contributors

profile

Brandon Blatcher

Brandon Blatcher

profile

taz

taz

profile

lobstermitten

lobstermitten