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.
Now to the question of toilet paper, or what passes for toilet paper throughout most of Europe ~ shoprags in the US ~ the real question is DO THEY USE IT?
Well I did about ten minutes ago.
And I washed my hands too!
Too much information.
Yes, and even better - in number of European countries they clean their bottom with the warm water and soap - much more hygienic than paper. :) (Search Google for "bidet")
But we were discussing the third-world where the European mobsters have the counterfeit drugs manufactured.
I've heard that conditions aren't as good there.
I borrowed your line to bump the thread.
I agree with your perception. However, Bush taking on Social Security, tort reform, and even maybe school choice - the jury is still out! Let's hope he can deliver!
A large percentage of the groceries we buy come from overseas. Over the years, I have grown to trust the Fry's Marketplace and Weber's IGA buyers' judgement when they select apples from Chile and cilantro from Mexico. If Fry's or IGA poisoned me, I would go shop elsewhere. Unlike in the prescription business, I have a choice.
The term 're-importation' is just a smokescreen. It applies only to American-made drugs sold to other countries at a lower price than in the US. What we're actually for is the right to buy on the worldwide market.
The low prices we pay for all that stuff at Wal-Mart are set on the worldwide market, including the American-made goods sold there. Our jobs are shopped on the worldwide market, meaning that we have to compete against Indians and Chinese. Why should drug manufacturers enjoy special socialist price-fixing privileges not available to the rest of us?
You can get anything you want on the internet. Maybe from a different country, but made by the same 9 or 10 pharmaceutical companies. If you know what you need and don't want to sit around with a bunch of sickos in a waiting room. I caught the flu last year in a waiting room.
Aye, I understand the similarities. Unsanitary growing conditions vs. factories which don't use GMP.
OTOH, a little pill could contain (according to naked eye inspection, which is all most end-stage consumers have access to) almost anything. You can look at a green pepper and tell someone isn't trying to fake you out with a Prickly Pear cactus.
Full Disclosure: Once in Minneapolis I came across a news story where a woman claimed she came across a black widow spider in her bunch of discount-store grapes imported from Argentina. And since black widows often hang out in old-fashioned outdoor privies it kinda sorta has relevance.
;-)
The issue is whether these Euro drug companies themselves have a two tier pricing system vis a vis the US.
I was referring specificlly to American-made drugs sold to other countries at a lower price than in the US. This is only because these socialist countries will accept no other way and threaten our drug companies patents if they wont sell at the fixed price.
I reiterate, if drug companies prices are artificially forced down, fewer new drugs will come to market and people will die!
If you're comfortable with that that's your problem. I'm not.
You mean the USA is SOCIALIST. Hey bud the price-fixing takes place here! Get your head on straight. The drug companies willingly sell these drugs to Canada/Mexico etc at that price and MAKE money doing it. If they didn't they wouldn't do it. Sheeesh get a clue!!! The socialist market is here. The drug companies are subsidized through our taxes (Medicaid, Senior plan etc) and the insurance companies and this results in outrageous prices for those of us who pay DIRECT. I pay for a large part of my own drugs and would have to pay the outrageous inflated American prices if it wasn't for importation. The cash price on these drugs is not real and is a direct result of the insurance companies and government. Now go suck up the Drug industry PR generated line that is completely socialist.
I certainly hope so. The drug companies will stop this "competition" in "their" marketplace. Anyone who can have Viagra/Levitra/Cialis/Vioxx/Bextra/Celebrex/Prosac/Zoloft/Zocor/etc. commercials on 24/7/365 can buy all the senators and brainwash all the freepers etc they want.
Of course they make money. It's called marginal profit. The rest of your comments cannot be dignified with an answer.
So your are a socialist?
Because they expose the true socialist in this conversation - YOU
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