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Townhall
Real
World Problems
by Rich Galen
Sep 28, 2012
Living
and working in Your Nation's Capital I
forget, sometimes, that grand issues are fun to debate on CNN or MSNBC,
but
real people deal with real issues.
At
a fundraiser for Rep. Bill Johnson (R-Oh)
last night, I heard from a nurse anesthetist that there is a continuing
shortage of the basic drug she uses to put people to sleep for surgery.
And
that when they have the drug it often has a label written in some
language
other than English, and that the efficacy of the drugs is not constant.
"What
should take one stick," she
said, "based upon the patient's size and weight, "can sometimes take
two or three sticks."
According
to an article in the New England
Journal of Medicine,
Recently,
the supply of one drug - the sterile
injectable drug propofol, a fast-onset, short-acting sedative-hypnotic
agent
used for the induction and maintenance of anesthesia or sedation - has
become
critically low.
Which
I provide to you as evidence that the
nurse anesthetist was not making this up.
Seems
that a combination of problems in the
manufacture of propofol - which has a fairly long manufacturing lead
time -
plus the drug having come off patent and therefore is far less
profitable have
led to this situation.
Who
knew?
A
man complained that one of the two Manganese
Ferro Alloy plants in the United States is located in Marietta, Ohio
and is
being threatened with shut-down because new regulations from the
Environmental
Protection Agency are impossible for the plant to meet.
One
of the smartest parenting decisions I ever
made came about when The Lad - then about nine - asked if I knew
everything.
"I
know 80 percent of everything," I
said, thus providing myself with a cushion of non-knowledge that has
stood me
in good stead for lo these many ensuing years.
It
will not surprise you to find out that
Manganese Ferro Alloys (and, for that matter the supply chain of
propofol) are
part of the 20 percent I know nothing about.
However,
people involved in making the stuff do
and it seems that Manganese Ferro Alloys are to steel as flour is to
bread.
Not
only that, but guess which country is the
world's largest maker of the stuff?
Keerekt.
China…
Read
the rest of this article at Townhall
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