Drug Shortages: What Causes Them and How They Impact Your Medications

When your pharmacy says your drug shortage, a situation where the supply of a medication falls below demand, leaving patients without access. Also known as medication unavailability, it’s not just a backend problem—it’s a real barrier to your health. This isn’t rare. In 2023, over 300 drugs were in short supply across the U.S. and Canada, including common ones like insulin, antibiotics, and blood pressure pills. These aren’t niche or experimental drugs—they’re the ones you take every day.

Drug shortages happen for reasons you might not expect. Sometimes it’s a single factory shutdown—like when a plant fails an FDA inspection and gets shut down for months. Other times, it’s because manufacturers stop making cheap generics because the profit is too low. You might think generics are cheap because they’re easy to make, but they’re often made by companies that barely make a dime per pill. When raw materials get expensive or shipping delays hit, those companies walk away. And when they do, there’s rarely a backup. Even more troubling, some brand-name companies quietly produce their own authorized generics, identical versions of their brand drugs sold under a different label, often to control market share after patents expire, which can reduce competition and make shortages worse.

These shortages don’t just mean you wait a few days. They force doctors to switch your medication—sometimes to something less effective, more expensive, or with worse side effects. For example, if you’re on a specific blood thinner, a medication used to prevent dangerous clots, such as apixaban or warfarin and it’s unavailable, you might be switched to another that increases your risk of bleeding or requires frequent blood tests. People with chronic conditions like multiple sclerosis or heart disease are hit hardest. Their treatments aren’t optional. When the drug is gone, so is their stability.

What can you do? First, don’t wait until your last pill to refill. Talk to your pharmacist early if you notice your prescription is harder to get. Keep a written list of your meds—dosage, brand, generic name—so if you need to switch, your provider can make the right call. Use trusted resources like LactMed or FDA alerts to track known shortages. And if your medication is suddenly unavailable, ask: Is there a therapeutic alternative? Is there a different manufacturer? Sometimes, a drug is back in stock but not yet listed in your pharmacy’s system.

The posts below dig into real cases: how a shortage of azathioprine affects transplant patients, why some people end up paying more for generics during shortages, and how the FDA’s approval process for generics can either help or hurt availability. You’ll also find practical tips on how to advocate for yourself when your medicine isn’t there—and how to spot when a shortage might be coming before it hits your pharmacy shelf.