Posted on 01/28/2005 8:00:54 PM PST by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
When Congress passed landmark Medicare reforms last year, critics opposed a provision banning Americans from buying "Canadian" prescription drugs and a study of the safety and cost benefits of cross border purchasing was mandated in the legislation.
For several years, healthcare policy analysts and health safety experts have produced a cacophony of powerful objections to importation based on worries about safety and pricing. Now adding to the din of serious concern comes this study from the Department of Health and Human Services produced by a respected, international expert panel that not only highlights the dangers of importation, but is likely to shift the tide of the debate.
"Safe Importation" is an oxymoron. It is impossible to achieve, and any politician claiming that importation can be safe knowingly speaks an untruth. The HHS report now gives them little room to wiggle and even fewer places to hide.
Released in mid-December, the report provides irrefutable evidence that banning what consumers believe are "Canadian" drugs protects Americans from harm. The report also dispels another vote-garnering argument proffered by pro-importation politicians by casting doubt that Canadian drugs are cheaper.
In analyzing the effects of legalizing importation from non-U.S. sources, a critical finding of the study echoes concerns of importation opponents that drugs purchased from "Canada" are often not, in fact, Canadian.
As many as 70% of Internet websites that have the appearance of being in Canada, aren't. They are not peddling U.S.-made drugs returned from Canada. Their drugs are produced in unsafe, unsanitary facilities in places such as India, the Dominican Republic and Pakistan. They are either minimally effective or outright counterfeits with no active ingredients.
And the American patient ordering from his computer has little chance of detecting that his drugs come from foreign manufacturers or criminal counterfeiters.
Demonstrating its own concerns, Health Canada refuses to vouch for the quality of drugs that flow through Canada to the U.S. Its position is that the country receiving foreign prescription drugs bears responsibility for the quality of those drugs. The Canadian Government echoes the concerns of its Health Department and goes even further, questioning whether or not to continue allowing Canadian pharmacies to export drugs to the U.S. at all.
Canadian officials recognize that the drug supply of some 30 million Canadians cannot possibly fill the needs of nearly 300 million Americans. It recognizes that this supply deficit is a gilded invitation for bad actors to ramp up counterfeit drug importation schemes.
The Canadian Health Minister, Ujjal Dosanjh, has repeatedly stated that Canada "cannot be the drugstore of the United States" and threatened to impose new regulations that would essentially bar the sales of actual Internet pharmacies by the end of January.
Legalizing importation would ensure that Americans take drugs from unknown sources for which nobody has taken responsibility. That, says the HHS report, is a prescription for disaster. "Many transactions," the report offers, "are occurring via poorly regulated and occasionally bogus Internet operations that have been documented ... to provide consumers with inferior products."
That prescription drugs from unverifiable sources are dangerous is no surprise. But few anticipated that the report would find that Canadian prescription drugs are not necessarily cheaper than their American counterparts.
"That most imported drugs are less expensive than American drugs is generally not true," the report states. It concluded that generic drugs, most widely used by Americans, are usually less expensive here in the U.S. and that lower prices can be found simply by shopping around or utilizing readily available prescription drug discount cards.
The study's authors contend that the enormous - and impossible - expense of screening imported drugs would more than offset any cost savings. "The public rightly expects that ... imported drugs [would] be safe and effective," they wrote. "Substantial resources would ... be needed to ensure adequate inspection of imported drug products."
The study raises yet another red flag for Americans seeking "Canadian" prescription drugs and confirms that there is no balance between safety and cost, no compromise appropriate. The U.S. has the safest drug supply in the world, and importing danger based on false cost concerns is simply not worth the risk.
HHS demonstrated once and for all that a Canadian drug cure-all is a hazardous myth. With such overwhelming evidence of the dangers inherent in legalizing importation, it is unconscionable that any politician would continue to play Russian roulette with the integrity of our medicine supply.
Bang?
We will just have to wait and see.
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Kerri Houston is Vice President of Policy for Frontiers of Freedom and Executive Director of its Project for the American Healthcare Century.
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Note -- The opinions expressed in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions, views, and/or philosophy of GOPUSA.
Another poor suffereing corporations myth. The medication which I would like to be cheaper can be bought in Europe in generic form for 10% of price. And it was invented IN FRANCE and the pharma company selling it in USA is GERMAN.
Yep...and I'm teaching my own kids the same thing...but that doesn't mean we need to justify an unwinnable War On Some Drugs to keep stupid adults from smokin' weeds.
"This is the "Canada is the place to get pharmaceuticals", not the "Free Dope" thread!"
Ain't this thread whatever we make it, my FRiend?!
FReegards...MUD
Judging by the responses - i don't see many freepers for gov't intervention! This is a very good thing.
You could ask the same in the field of pillows. Each state could presumably write it's own code for new pillow sanitation (hence the "do not remove" tags on pillows).
They don't. In fact, they have all adopted the very same law. My pillow calls it the "Pennsylvania" la te da. Odds are the uniform commercial code item for pharmaceuticals is NOT going to be the California laws.
Not really. If you want to make it the Free Dope thread, we can do that, but first I want to check the contents of your pockets. Please turn around and put your hands on the roof of your car.
Bush is a drug company symp on this issue. I oppose him totally, because he is totally wrong.
Amen the idiots on this board that can't see the drug industry for what it is - extortion with government protection.
Yer wish is my command...just tell me when yer done...MUD
I'm all for that provided you serve as the official "taster". I see no reason to put myself at risk on behalf of your ideological blinders.
The drug companies have the option of not selling to these countries. I believe Merck is using this approach.
Ignorance is it's own reward I guess.
All the more reason to have a most favored nation pricing law in the US. I had not thought about the issue of drug companies off shore doing research, and making the two tier system cause only one set of comsumers, ie in the US, to pay for it. Thanks for tweaking my brain on that.
LMAO - Maybe with just a little research you can determine if the company is legit.
You take the word of a GOP press release and imply that I am ignorant. Too funny!
I am statistical kind of guy. One or a few unfortunate incidents does not move me to cause Americans to fork over an extra hundred billion for drugs or whatever. Heck that rationale could cause lots of things to be banned. The list would be VERY long. Pencil me down as a cold hearted bastard or whatever.
You are probably correct. I think Merck threatened to quit selling to Canadian pharmacies that were selling in the US. I heard it on the radio a few days ago and can't remember the specific details :(
He readily pays for his trips doing this.
At the same time the local products his customers (mostly relatives and old friends) are shunning can and do get exported to Canada, frequently in packaging that suggests they were manufactured in the United States.
My argument is being counseled by personal experience and not ideology.
lol - posting too quickly. Prior post was meant for you?
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