SOUTHFIELD, Mich. (WXYZ) — For more than a month now, parents across the country are finding similar scenes at their local pharmacy. Shelves, usually filled with children's medicine, are mostly empty.
It's a problem impacting members of our Channel 7 family like Leroy Zagata.
“I couldn't find Children's Mucinex, I couldn't find Children's Tylenol, the shelves were just empty of the children’s stuff,” said Zagata, whose wife works at WXYZ.
Currently, both Zagata’s 5-year-old daughter and 3-year-old son are sick and their pharmacy didn’t have enough amoxicillin to fill his daughter’s prescription. Eventually, he was able to find some at another pharmacy nearby.
“We were lucky that it was out there, but definitely already seeing the effects of stuff not being readily available,” Zagata said.
Dr. Nate Bazzi, owner of Farmington Drugs in Livonia, says a shortage of amoxicillin suspension (liquid form usually for children) has been ongoing for weeks. He just received a new shipment on Tuesday and urges parents to be patient if their prescription can’t be filled immediately.
"It flies off the shelf, literally,” Dr. Bazzi said. "Our advice is just calling around to pharmacies and seeing if they have it available.”
Dr. Sean Sullivan with Birmingham Pediatrics says with the shortage they often have to prescribe other antibiotics instead,
“Now we're getting to a point where I have to start prescribing amoxicillin, crossing my fingers that it’s in stock, and if it’s not I have to find out 'well, what do you have in stock,'” Dr. Sullivan said. “Normally you go with the most common denominator which is amoxicillin because it treats 90% of the stuff and it will have the least amount of side effects. But, with the current shortage we're dealing with, we've had to escalate to other drugs we wouldn't normally use as a first line of defense.”
The FDA says the amoxicillin shortage is due to an increased demand for the drug, which is likely due to the amount of kids getting sick this winter.
As pediatricians and pharmacists navigate the situation, parents are working together too, helping each other through yet another shortage impacting their kids.
“It's not like they’re completely out, but it’s concerning if you’re driving around with a sick kid trying to find medicine," Zagata said. "That’s tough.”
In the meantime, CVS has implemented a two-product limit on children's pain medication, both in-store and online.
