'HUGE HEALTH CRISIS': Dr Siegel warns over 300 'crucial, life-saving' drugs are not available
Dr. Marc Siegel joined 'America's Newsroom' to discuss inflation forcing older adults to skip medications and the impact of the drug shortage on all Americans.
A new study found that more seniors are being forced to delay or skip medications as they battle rising prices and rampant inflation at the pharmacy.
The JAMA Network out of Vanderbilt released a study indicating approximately one in five Americans 65 years of age and older modified their prescription routine to make it more cost-effective.
Some delayed their medications, skipping them altogether, and some patients even resorted to taking another individual's medication, the study found.
"This is a big deal, and it has a lot to do with the fact that as people get over 65, they're on a fixed income… and with inflation, they may not be able to afford the co-payment that they may have or even with a reduction or some kind of discount card, they may not be able to afford it," Dr. Marc Siegel, a Fox News medical contributor, said during "America's Newsroom" on Monday.
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"And the problem is that the formularies are very restricted now. And so what was really interesting about this study out of JAMA Network Open out of Vanderbilt was actually when they were asked, they said if our physician would only guide us, if we could only get guidance to alternative medicines, we would go ahead and take it," he continued. "That was 80 to 90% of the seniors that were surveyed said that because doctors have restricted time, they may not know the answer and the generic alternatives may not be available also because they may be short."
Amid surging prices, Americans have also been battling shortages of certain drugs. A March 2023 Senate report previously indicated the "triple threat" of COVID-19, influenza and RSV (respiratory syncytial virus) caused a spike in patients seeking medication in the winter of 2022.
The massive shortages stemmed from individuals and providers "panic-buying" more medications than they needed amid fear and confusion, according to the report from the Milken Center for Public Health in Washington, D.C.
"Not only that, and this is another piece of the seniors' problem," Siegel said. "The intermediary is sucking up the profit here. You got the pharmacy benefit managers that are in the middle of it negotiating with generics from offshore and even in the United States and saying, here's the price. As long as I get my profit, we'll get it across and we'll get it into the hands of the people who need it the most. But the problem is that the generic companies shut down if they're not guaranteed that they got a buyer."
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Siegel continued by emphasizing the massive drug shortage, noting that the American Society for Health Care Pharmacists claims there are more than 300 medications affected.
He detailed the shortages as detrimental, accounting for the "life-saving" nature of many of the prescriptions.
"We're talking about chemotherapy, we're talking about antibiotics, we're talking about heart drugs. We're talking about intravenous medications," Siegel said. "These are crucial life-saving drugs. We're relying on generics. They're not made here in the United States."
"There are supply chain issues and they're not available. A huge public health crisis," he stressed.
Fox News' Melissa Rudy contributed to this report.
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