South-Carolina
Tornado damage to Pfizer factory highlights vulnerabilities of drug supply
The extent of damage from a tornado that struck a critical Pfizer factory in Rocky Mount, N.C., is now coming into focus.
The first images after the tornado hit it on July 19 showed a roof that was mangled and torn off. The facility makes dozens of medicines used in hospitals across the United States.
Hospitals panicked.
“Every hospital buyer across the country, the second they heard about that tornado, everyone was just, like, ‘Buy, buy, buy, buy, buy!’” says Erin Fox, a pharmacy director for the University of Utah Health’s hospitals.
They didn’t wait to find out which products were affected or how long shortages might last.
Pfizer makes dozens of hospital drugs at damaged factory
Pharmaceutical companies are reluctant to disclose exactly what they make where. The information is often blacked out on Food and Drug Administration inspection records, for example. The agency’s statement following the tornado explained “disclosure laws prevent the FDA from providing a complete list of products made at the facility.”
Pfizer declined an interview request.
NPR was able to use records from the National Institutes of Health to compile a list of dozens of drugs that are made there. They cover hundreds of billing codes that comprise different formulations and packages.
The products include a lot of painkillers and anesthetics that are used in hospitals and given intravenously. And there are also drugs like naloxone, which is used to reverse opioid overdoses, and vitamin K, which is used to prevent bleeding in newborns.
According to Pfizer, this site makes about 8% of all sterile injectables used in hospitals across the U.S.
Pfizer makes many of these products at only its Rocky Mount site, NPR found. However, a competing company, like Baxter International, often makes a similar product.
The FDA says less than 10 products made by Pfizer at its Rocky Mount factory are sole source. But the agency said there are either substitutes or enough stock in other Pfizer warehouses to minimize disruptions.
Boston University health economist Rena Conti says her research shows only a handful are “backbone” therapies for which there are no real alternatives. “This includes vitamin K1, which is needed for almost every live birth in a hospital,” she says, and aminophylline, which can help people who are having trouble breathing.
The FDA is working with Pfizer to assess and mitigate the situation, commissioner Robert Califf said in a statement. The agency said it doesn’t anticipate any immediate significant supply disruptions.
Pfizer limited hoarding
The company was able to curtail hoarding fairly quickly, University of Utah’s Fox says. Pfizer worked with wholesalers to limit what hospitals could buy to no more than 100% of their usual orders.
Pfizer also sent a letter to health care providers on Friday, explaining that its initial assessment of the damage found that production areas of the Rocky Mount facility were mostly unscathed. The warehouse sustained most of the damage.
The company’s letter listed 65 products made at the site that Pfizer thinks might have disruptions based on existing inventory and market share.
A lot of the products were already in shortage, which is good news and bad news, says Fox, who is also a national expert on drug shortages. The bad news is those shortages will continue for things like certain formulations of lidocaine, a local anesthetic. But the good news is hospitals already know how to cope.
“If there had to be this tornado, it seems like this is probably one of the best-case scenarios where, you know, manufacturing lines aren’t impacted, and it was an area of the facility that can be fairly quickly rebuilt,” Fox says. “And so it’s not a time to panic.”
She expects the ripple effects of this to last a few months rather than a few years.
Climate change puts drug factories at risk
Conti, of Boston University, says the tornado is a good reminder about the vulnerabilities in the U.S. drug supply. When Hurricane Maria struck Puerto Rico in 2017, the damage caused shortages of IV saline bags.
“Pharmaceutical manufacturing in the United States requires access to water and has traditionally been located in places such as Puerto Rico, the Gulf States and other locations that are now vulnerable to climate change,” Conti says.
The weather events could serve as a warning.
Redundancy is also important in the drug supply chain so that when something halts production at one factory – whether it’s a tornado or a bad inspection — it’s not the end of the world.
“There are approximately 230 drugs in short supply currently in the United States,” Conti says. “The Pfizer plant will definitely take down another couple of dozen drugs, and a handful of those will likely go into shortage, or the shortages will become more persistent because of what happened. However, there are somewhere on the order of 6,000 drugs sold into the U.S. market every single day.”
She says it’s important to remember that despite all the challenges, the U.S. drug supply is resilient and “remarkably high quality.”
“Our system remains the gold standard for the world,” she says.
Copyright 2023 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.
South-Carolina
How to watch South Carolina vs Iowa State women’s basketball: Time, channel, live streams
The 4th-ranked South Carolina Gamecocks women’s basketball team next ships off to the Sunshine State for a matchup with No. 15 Iowa State at the Fort Myers Tip-off. The game is scheduled to start at 1:30 p.m. ET with TV coverage on FOX and streaming on-demand.
- How to watch: Live streams of the South Carolina vs. Iowa State game are available with offers from FuboTV (free trial), SlingTV (low intro rate) and DirecTV Stream (free trial).
- For a limited time, FuboTV is offering $30 off the first month after the free trial period. With the $30 offer, plans start at $49.99.
#4 South Carolina Gamecocks (5-1) vs. #15 Iowa State Cyclones (5-1)
NCAA women’s basketball matchup at a glance
When: Thursday, Nov. 28 at 1:30 p.m. ET
Where: Suncoast Credit Union Arena, Fort Myers, Fla.
TV channel: FOX
Live streams: FuboTV (free trial) | SlingTV (low intro rate) | DirecTV Stream (free trial)
Both South Carolina and Iowa State lost their first games of the 2024-’25 season within the past eight days, with the Gamecocks falling on the road to No. 5 UCLA (77-62) on Sunday and the Cyclones to Northern Iowa (87-75) last Wednesday in Cedar Falls. South Carolina is now 5-1 in its defense of the 2024 NCAA women’s championship with a top-10 win over NC State highlighting the team’s early-season résumé. The Gamecocks will be Iowa State’s first ranked opponent after falling to No. 2 seed Stanford in overtime (87-81) in the second round of last season’s NCAA Tournament
South Carolina Gamecocks vs. Iowa State Cyclones: Know your live streaming options
- FuboTV (free trial) – excellent viewer experience with huge library of live sports content; free trial lengths vary; monthly rate after free trial starts at $59.99 after current $20 discount offer.
- SlingTV (low intro rate) – discounted first month is best if you’ve run out of free trials or you’re in the market for 1+ month of TV
- DirecTV Stream (free trial) – not the same level of viewer experience as FuboTV, but the standard 7-day free trial is still the longest in streaming.
South Carolina and Iowa State are set for a 1:30 p.m. ET start on FOX. Live streams are available from FuboTV (free trial), DirecTV Stream (free trial) and SlingTV (low intro rate).
The 2024 South Carolina high school football season is in high gear and SBLive Sports is the place to follow of the live scoring updates and finals.
Follow the action get the most to date scores by tracking the SBLive South Carolina High School Football Scoreboard. We will have in-game score updates and all of the final scores from every corner of the state. You can also search for full schedules and complete scores from all of your very favorite teams.
Here’s a guide to following all of the South Carolina high school football this week.
STATEWIDE SOUTH CAROLINA FOOTBALL SCOREBOARD
CLASS 5A SCORES | CLASS 4A SCORES
CLASS 3A SCORES | CLASS 2A SCORES
CLASS 1A SCORES
SCISA CLASS AAAA | SCISA CLASS AAA
SCISA CLASS AA | SCISA A
2024 SOUTH CAROLINA FOOTBALL SCHEDULES: FIND YOUR TEAM
Can’t make it to your favorite team’s game but still want to watch them live? You can watch dozens of South Carolina high school football games live on the NFHS Network:
WATCH LIVE ON NFHS NETWORK
We also invite you to visit the brand new South Carolina homepage on High School on SI, powered by SBLive Sports, for the latest news, highlights, analysis, scores, photos and information on South Carolina high school sports. Follow our live game coverage and read our feature stories, breaking news, the latest recruiting news, rankings and much more.
Follow SBLive South Carolina throughout the 2024 high school football season for Live Updates, the most up to date Schedules & Scores and complete coverage from the preseason through the state championships!
Be sure to Bookmark High School on SI for all of the latest high school football news.
To get live updates on your phone – as well as follow your favorite teams and top games – you can download the SBLive Sports app: Download iPhone App | Download Android App
— Mitch Stephens | mitch@scorebooklive.com | @highschoolonsi
South-Carolina
ESPN's College Football Playoff Predictor has updated again. Here's where South Carolina stands
ESPN.com’s College Football Playoff predictor isn’t perfect because it applies analytics to a situation that ultimately will be decided by a committee of humans. But it does provide a nice guide and discussion piece about which teams have the best chance to make this year’s College Football Playoff.
Because of that human element, the predictor has been updating twice each week, once on Sunday to account for Saturday’s games and again after the latest CFP rankings are released.
[More for subscribers: What latest rankings mean for South Carolina’s College Football Playoff chances]
While the Gamecocks won their game on Saturday and got a lot of help from the teams around them last week, the logjam of SEC teams ahead of them in Tuesday’s rankings is still limiting their upside at this time.
With the committee putting South Carolina behind fellow three-loss SEC teams Alabama and Ole Miss, the predictor currently gives South Carolina a 20 percent chance of making the 12-team field, which is three percentage points lower than its chances in Sunday’s update.
The Gamecocks do, of course, have one more huge opportunity to pad their resume when they travel to Clemson this weekend to renew the annual rivalry in what may be the biggest game in the matchup’s history.
Beat the Tigers, who are currently No. 12 in the CFP Top 25, and South Carolina’s chances of making the playoff jump to 46 percent, according to the predictor.
While that’s just under a coin flip, it’s also 12 percentage points lower than it was in Sunday’s update.
South Carolina is still very much in the hunt but is going to need to win and play very well against Clemson and get more help around it.
[GamecockCentral: $1 for 7 days]
As a reminder, the CFP committee’s top 12 teams won’t correlate exactly with the 12-team field.
The CFP will consist of the top five highest-ranked conference champions and the next seven highest-ranked at-large schools. The top four conference champions will receive the top four seeds and a first-round bye. The fifth conference champion will be seeded by its CFP ranking. If that ranking is outside of the top 12 it will be seeded 12th as the final team in the field.
The teams seeded 5 through 12 will fight it out in the first round with the winners advancing to the quarterfinal round to face the top four seeds.
The Gamecocks and Tigers are set for a noon showdown Saturday in Clemson.
ESPN Analytics uses FPI to simulate the entire college football season 200,000 times. A committee model is applied to mimic College Football Playoff selections and seeding in order to generate a 12-team bracket for each simulation. The most likely CFP teams are provided for user selections. After user inputs, a likely bracket is generated and randomly simulated using FPI.
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