About a year ago, President Obama signed a law that was supposed to end chronic shortages of lifesaving drugs. But the critical lack of generic drugs continues unabated. It is a preventable crisis that is inflicting suffering on patients and, in some cases, causing needless deaths. According to the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists, a group that maintains a closely watched drug-shortage database, 302 drugs were in short supply as of July 31, up from 211 about a year earlier.
