Behind the Shortage Keeping Cancer Patients From Chemo

Stephanie Scanlan learned about the shortages of basic chemotherapy drugs this spring in the most frightening way. Two of the three drugs typically used to treat her rare bone cancer were too scarce. She would have to go forward without them.

Ms. Scanlan, 56, the manager of a busy state office in Tallahassee, Fla., had sought the drugs for months as the cancer spread from her wrist to her rib to her spine. By summer it was clear that her left wrist and hand would need to be amputated.

“I’m scared to death,” she said as she faced the surgery. “This is America. Why are we having to choose who we save?”

The disruption this year in supplies of key chemotherapy drugs has realized the worst fears of patients — and of the broader health system — because some people with aggressive cancers have been unable to get the treatment they need.