Patients in the EU will likely continue to face shortages of vital medicines in the future, according to a report by the European Court of Auditors.
The number of medicine shortages reported by EU countries reached record levels in 2023 and 2024. Between January 2022 and October 2024, EU member states recorded critical shortages of 136 medicines, according to the report.
Well if you outsource all your medicine production to India and China, you make yourself dependent and won’t be able to control the supply chains. So yeah, on the one hand you save money, but on the other hand you can’t guarantee your minimum health standards anymore. Who would have thought?
Unfortunately those who lobbied for or made these decisions are unaffected by or even benefit from shortages. It‘s so messed up.
This topic- like many others!- should be a theme in any real political debate or political parties manifest for elections.
Unfortunately, most people( politicians) don’t have the balls or tits or whatever, to put these relevant issues on the agenda.
Why? Because they are the result of our extremely complex society and structural short term view of politics. There are no easy solutions, but not addressing the issues won’t make them ago away, and potentially push the electorate to more BS extreme politicians; fascist in disguise.
We need an updated more grounded and relevant democratic system. Something like David Van Reybrouck suggested with his G1000 initiative for example.
He also emphasized that for common painkillers such as paracetamol and ibuprofen, the EU is entirely dependent on Asia.
One of the main causes of shortages, the auditors in Luxembourg noted, is weakness in supply chains.
Additionally, the EU’s internal market for medicines is fragmented and free trade is restricted.
