I thought the ADHD meds shortage was more than awful enough on its own, but holy crap this is horrifying.
Apparently the current shortage is in large part because an Indian drug manufacturer that was "was supplying the U.S. with half of its cisplatin, half of its methotrexate, 20 percent of its carboplatin" was investigated by the FDA last November, and it was found that quality control and safety measures was neigh nonexistent. Purity and dosage were thus unreliable. And since these drugs are injected directly into the bloodstream rather than digested, even a little contamination with bacteria or other harmful substances can be very, very bad.
There are hospitals rationing cancer drugs right now, lowering dosages or denying them altogether:
"Currently, what I’ve heard from a lot of oncologists is that hospitals around the country are trying to make this work, and they’re succeeding, but just. Sometimes they are lowering the dose that patients receive. Sometimes they are spreading out the doses over longer intervals. They’re really doing everything they can to make their meager supplies last for as long as possible. They’re pulling every string possible to get more of these drugs. But some of the oncologists have told me that their colleagues are starting to have to ration care. Some of them are having to ration care themselves. An oncologist named Patrick Timmins, who’s a gynecologic oncologist, told me that at his hospital, he can treat people who come in with primary ovarian cancer who just had a new diagnosis, but he no longer can offer these drugs to people with recurrent cancer, because he doesn’t have enough. Even though giving them cisplatin, or carboplatin, might really help to improve their quality of life, might give them a lot more months, or even years, of good-quality life."
This slate article is mostly an interview transcript; I found it worth the read, although I wish they had at least mentioned the concept of socialized/single-payer healthcare in their discussion, or that they talked about what might be feasible to do about the current shortage in the short term instead of just about how to change the system to avoid future shortages.