Editorial: Wise action on drug shortages

The American Medical Association sounded a chilling alarm last week, calling the growing shortages of critical drugs a national public health emergency. The number of injectable anti-cancer and other drugs where there have been potentially lethal shortages soared to a record 200 this year. So President Barack Obama ordered the Food and Drug Administration to speed its reviews of new manufacturing plants and suppliers, and to require early warnings from drugmakers of impending supply disruptions. He also directed the FDA and Justice Department to determine if gray market profiteers are hoarding medicines and selling them at exorbitant prices. Those moves should help. But the cause of more than half of the shortages has been quality problems at plants. Pharmaceutical makers simply must do a better job of quality control.