Good morning. I see that Dee has a thread up already on Puerto Rico. Let me add another one. Just in case the problems in the PR seem too far away for some, it’s about to get very real for people in the continental United States — like very quickly. This retweet showed up on my TL a few minutes ago:
That Puerto Rican factory is owned by Baxter and they are responsible for not only making IV bags, but surgical equipment and other medical supplies that services continental U.S. medical facilities.
The FDA quietly released this presser November 17th on the situation:
Most significantly to date, hospitals across the country are reporting shortages of IV fluids, particularly sodium chloride 0.9% injection bags – a type of saline bag. Saline IV fluids, which are used to inject drugs intravenously in hospital and outpatient settings, have been intermittently in shortage dating back to 2014. However, despite our best efforts, the situation in Puerto Rico has greatly exacerbated this supply issue. The FDA understands the concerns and impact of the ongoing shortages of IV solutions. These products have been on the list of approximately 90 medical products (which includes biologics, devices and drugs) that the FDA has been monitoring since the storm hit, and the FDA is actively working to address the shortage. Among the steps the FDA is taking, in conjunction with manufacturers of these products:
- temporarily allowing the importation of IV saline products from facilities outside of the U.S.;
- encouraging the expansion of production at existing facilities to meet shortfalls; and
- expediting our review of new product applications that will help address this shortage.
For instance, we’re working with one supplier, Baxter, to help them restore operations in their Puerto Rico facilities and move critical ingredients and products onto and off the island. Additionally, the FDA recently approved IV solution products from Fresenius Kabi and Laboratorios Grifols. Both companies are expected to increase production of saline products in the coming weeks. We believe steps like these will help to improve the shortage situation over time.
Now the FDA is our regulator for food, drugs and medical products, among other things. One way to insure that we Americans are receiving top quality medical supplies and equipment is having them manufactured in the U.S. or in our territories where federal regulatory standards are enforced.
I don’t really need to do the math for you; with PR in such dire straits and given the current tenor of this Administration, don’t be surprised if supplies are green lighted from other factories not under U.S. federal regulation.
In the meantime, shortages of medical supplies are being rationed right now in U.S. hospitals and other medical facilities. If you are in need of services that require the use of certain equipment, then I hope you are paying attention.
Of course the citizens of Puerto Rico are most impacted because they have both little supplies and no power to boot. People are and will be dying because of the situation in the PR. The current estimate of getting power back on is now May, 2018 — for some reason, the needed equipment to rebuild the power lines are slow in arriving and nearly 50,000 pounds of food was left by FEMA undelivered to PR in Florida. Also, competing power equipment needs in both Florida and Texas is adding to the misery there.
This time it’s PR and the VI. Next time it will be one of us. All of us are connected and what affects one will eventually affect us all.
This is yet another reason why we must retake Congress so that the Trump regime can be impeached out of office — all of them.
Before we reach a point of no return.