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Patients’ access to critical medicines could be threatened if prolonged strikes occur at ports along the Eastern and Gulf coasts, doctors warn.
Susan Thomas, CEO of pharmacy LucyRx, says most people underestimate how much medicine is produced outside of the United States.
The reality of the situation, according to an emergency room doctor in New York, Dr. Robert Glatter, “is that the impending strike could affect imports of medical supplies and critical life-saving drugs from other countries on which American hospitals and clinics depend. to take care of his patients.”
It could also limit the amount of life-saving drugs and surgeries the U.S. exports to other countries, Glatter said.
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International Association of Longshoremen (ILA)which is negotiating on behalf of 45,000 dock workers at three dozen US ports, and the US Maritime Alliance (USMX), which represents port employers, are still at loggerheads over wages in a new contract.
The ILA warned its members are poised to stop work if they don’t have a new contract by the Oct. 1 deadline, putting a number of sectors in dire straits as the affected ports from Maine to Texas collectively handle about half of the country’s sea. importation.
Aerial view of containers and cargo ships at the Port of Los Angeles in San Pedro, California. (Photo by Qian Weizhong/VCG via Getty Images/Getty Images)
In the pharmaceutical industry, more than 91% of containerized imports and 69% of containerized exports of US pharmaceutical products are handled by their respective ports, according to Everstream Analytics.
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More than one in three containers shipped out of the U.S. with life-saving drugs leave the port of Norfolk, Virginia, while nearly 30% of containerized drug imports enter the U.S. at the port of Charleston, South Carolina, the company said.
Dr. Pat Basu, managing director at Varsity Healthcare Partners, told FOX Business that a strike could have a “dangerous” impact on access to medicines because the “vast majority of medicines” are handled by ports.
The strike comes at a time when many health care providers moved to a “just-in-time” supply model to save money, according to Basu. This means they have less medicine on hand.
A container ship docks at the Port of Miami in Miami, Florida. (Photo: Joe Raedle/Getty Images/Getty Images)
“While manufacturers and wholesale distributors have a month or more of certain drugs, when it gets closer to the patient touch point, ie. providers and retail pharmacies, they have a much more limited supply, possibly five to seven days in many cases,” Basu said.
To make matters worse, certain drugs or geographic areas already have restricted access, and some drugs that actually have a shorter shelf life could be disproportionately affected. Also, certain larger institutions may hold more inventory, which can limit access to others, Basu said.
Patients who may be concerned that their pharmacy will run out of medication can start monitoring their supplies and order a 90-day supply, if possible, to mitigate the potential impact, Thomas said.
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Another possibility is that the patient can talk to his doctor about starting another treatment. However, that may not always be an option.
Dr. Tiffany Moon, an associate professor of anesthesiology at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, warned that “there are a number of rescue medications that patients need without interruption or interruption.”
Harmacy offers a view through a glass window into the fully automated pharmacy. ((Photo: Andreas Arnold/Image Alliance via Getty Images) / Getty Images)
Chief among them would be things like “chemotherapy, where people are treated with different drugs, a cocktail of chemotherapy drugs, for different types of cancer,” Moon said. “If they lose their control, it can throw off the whole chemotherapy cycle.”
It could be “devastating” if someone is forced to stop taking oral cancer drugs, for example, because “the cancer can come back … and you could go out of remission,” Thomas added.
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Moon said that patients with type 1 diabetes who can’t get insulin, for example, “could go into a condition called diabetic ketoacidosis, which is potentially life-threatening.”
Image of medications at a Walgreens pharmacy. (Jeffrey Greenberg/Universal Images Group via Getty Images/Getty Images)
Moon also noted how important anti-rejection drugs are as well. Patients “need these anti-rejection drugs so their bodies don’t reject the organ they receive,” she said.
FOX Business’ Eric Revell contributed to this report.
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