US senators urge FDA to take action over wasted cancer drugs

US senators are calling for federal officials to scrutinize the drug industry’s marketing of expensive cancer drugs in vials containing more of the drug than is often needed, a practice that leads to hundreds of millions of dollars worth of drugs being thrown away every year.

In a letter to the Department of Health and Human Services inspector general, Daniel Levinson, on 20 May, Democrat senators Dick Durbin of Illinois, Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, and Barbara Mikulski of Maryland called for the department to identify drugs that were available in different vial sizes in other countries but were not …