The American Spectator reported today that there is a shortage of essential cancer drugs due to some changes in policy at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

The article reports:

The shortfall is the result of stricter FDA regulation, government price controls on already discounted but complex drugs, and policies that discourage the use of new medications. Companies, facing lower prices, tighter regulation and increasing government control over what drugs will be used and when, are exiting the U.S. market and investing in product development in China and India where, sadly, it is easier and cheaper to produce next-generation medicines.

As usual, government interference in the free marked is having a negative impact on the lives of Americans.

The article further points out::

Provenge, the first cancer vaccine, stalled at the FDA for years. Once approved, it faced 18 months of additional delay while the Obama administration figured out whether to pay for it. The gauntlet cancer patients face with Provenge is being extended to everyone waiting for a medical breakthrough under Obamacare. Before a medical innovation can be used or paid for, the government will now demand additional research demonstrating that a new product will be more effective and cheaper than existing technologies. Since most new products come from small start-ups with limited cash, such a requirement means life-saving innovations will not be available at all.

There will always be some risk associated with a new drug, but is it better to let people die than to take a reasonable risk?

This is the same government that decided that in order to save money, women under the age of fifty should not get mammograms. Since breast cancer can occur at any time and tends to be more aggressive in women in their thirties, this is the kind of decision that will result in women dying. I know a number of women who had breast cancer in their thirties and forties. They would never have discovered the cancer in time if the government policies of no mammograms until age fifty had been in effect.

Let the government do government things and the medical community do medical things. All Americans are negatively impacted when the government attempts to micromanage healthcare.