LAS VEGAS -- A nationwide drug shortage is causing southern Nevada paramedics to use some medications beyond the expiration date.
Paramedics make life and death decisions daily. The drugs they give patients must act within seconds but some of those medications may be less potent because they are past the expiration date.
John Hammond with the Southern Nevada Health District has led the debate on whether the less potent drugs put the public at risk.
"Currently, no," Hammond said. "But eventually we're going to run out of those expired medications."
Emergency heart attack, diabetes and breathing tube medication is in such short supply in the United States, Clark County health officials have extended the expiration dates. They're keeping drugs six months longer, and thinking of increasing that time frame to one year.
FDA List of Current Drug Shortages
Hammond said the medications do actually have a life after the expiration date. In the past, southern Nevada would ship expired drugs to Mexico for use there.
Hammond said there is no easy fix to the drug shortage. "I've been asked that before. I don't have a clear answer. I think there needs to be more cooperation between regulatory agencies, pharmaceutical production facilities and those tertiary industries that provide raw materials to the pharmaceutical industry."
The federal government is investigating, but has not found evidence of drug company price gouging. Most emergency drugs have fixed prices through Medicare.
"That actually adds to the problem. If the price is fixed and your margin is very short, very narrow, and your production cost increases, you have no incentive to produce that medication," Hammond said.
Southern Nevada Health District officials are thinking of getting in the drug manufacturing business even though it would cost five times as much as current drug prices. The health district is considering hiring a compounding pharmacy to make copies of emergency drugs.
Hospira, a leading drug manufacturer, is investing hundreds of millions of dollars to expand manufacturing plants to fix shortages.
