Based on the article “Drug Shortage: The Scary Reality of a World Without

Medication”, the author discusses the effect of drug shortage on the world. The author wants
to underline that drug shortages exist in this world and affect the health sector and patients.
Moreover, patients nowadays frequently experience stress related to not only being ill or
having to select a course of treatment but also the uncertainty of whether they can obtain the
medication they require from any source. Furthermore, the author is concerned that
medication shortages might lead to severe hazards, potentially threatening the choice of
medical treatment and possibly the lives of patients since drug shortages have happened in
almost every pharmaceutical category. More than 15 fatalities reported since 2010 were
related in a research published in March by the Proceedings of the Mayo Clinic to either no
treatment or the substitution of a less effective medicine owing to a shortage. Additionally,
the authors want to convince the readers that drug shortage can have harmful consequences
and harm people, typically patients. Therefore, this will attract readers, especially physicians,
drug suppliers, and patients.
The author supports his argument by mentioning that someone should be capable of
preventing this matter from being prevalent in the first paragraph. The author also supports
that, regardless of the reasons justifying the shortage, there should be proactive roles taken to
end this nightmare affecting many people's lives. Moreover, the authors have added the point
that threatening medical-care options and patients' lives, drug shortages have occurred in
almost every pharmaceutical category in the second paragraph.
In addition, solid evidence is provided to demonstrate that the author's position is
motivated primarily by financial concerns. The profits of manufacturers have increased as
generic medicine costs have decreased. Next, the author provided that Less-than-honorable
motivations on the part of the medicine manufacturers might also be a factor. Noting that
there is no shortage of drugs that generate substantial profits, such as Viagra, many
practitioners and patients think these drugs have deceptive motivations. Sixty-eight per cent
of U.S. hospitals have turned to compounders in response to medication shortages, according
to a 2013 study from the Health and Human Services Inspector General. Eighty-three per cent
of oncologists and haematologists said that they had encountered cancer drug shortages, and
nearly all of those said that drug shortages had impacted their patients' treatment. The
research was conducted by the University of Pennsylvania and presented at the 2013 annual
American Society of Clinical Oncology meeting.
Furthermore, the author uses deductive and inductive reasoning in the article. For
instance, in paragraph two, lines 9 to 12, the sentence with antibiotics, cancer drugs,
anaesthesia, pain control, reproductive and gynaecological drugs, cardiac medicine,
psychiatric drugs, and intravenous-feeding solutions have all been in varying degrees of short
supply or not available at all. Then, in the paragraph, the author describes the effect of the
main point. It is a form of logic in which a general statement is applied to a specific instance.
Next, in paragraph nine, lines 66 to 69, the sentence such dangers became vividly clear in
2012 after contaminated steroids from the New England Compounding Center led to an
outbreak of meningitis that killed 64 patients. Then, the author describes shortages and
expresses the idea for the reader to acknowledge. It progresses from a sequence of specific
situations to a general statement based on the paragraph.

Moreover, paragraph four, line 28 states that the business model of just-in-time
manufacturing, in which companies make drugs as patients need them but do not stockpile
extra, leaves no margin for unexpected events. Next, in paragraph six, line 40, over half the
drugs on the FDA shortage list had only one or two manufacturers, according to a report by
the IMS Institute for Healthcare Informatics. Lastly, in paragraph seven, line 48, the
congressional investigation led by Elijah Cummings, a Baltimore Democrat, has found that
shady secondary wholesalers buy up drugs in shortage and resell them, often at exorbitant
prices.

Overall, the author's arguments reveal his neutrality concerning the issue, which is the
reality of medicine scarcity. As mentioned above, the argument is persuasive due to the
author's extensive use of evidence in the form of figures, facts, and research results. This is
owing to the extensive use of evidence by the author. The author's reasoning is likewise
whole since all bases have been covered, and sufficient evidence has been supplied to support
the statements. Additionally, the author meets validity, relevance, and neutrality
requirements. Credible evidence demonstrates that the author's argument is both exhaustive
and objective. Since it is verifiable, objective evidence may be relied upon. In addition, when
an author creates a persuasive argument, they evaluate competing viewpoints, provide
convincing counterarguments, and exclude any facts that might contradict their argument.