FDA's plan to ease drug shortages needs work

According to a just-released analysis by the Government Accountability Office, the Food and Drug Administration is doing a better job at preventing drug shortages.

As Center for Drug Evaluation and Research Deputy Director Doug Throckmorton recently told Congress, new shortages declined in 2012 for the first time in a number of years and 2013 data indicated a similar downward trend. He said the agency’s new authorities (granted under a 2012 law) have allowed the FDA to manage shortages more aggressively.