This seems a little like someone in the 1920s arguing that the Eighteenth Amendment protected Americans because bathtub gin was poisonous.
Obviously, when Kerry proposes allowing the reimportation of prescription drugs from Canada, he’s not talking about consumers buying drugs online from shady sources. If U.S. pharmacies could legally buy less-expensive drugs from Canadian suppliers, less people would be suckered by scammers with an illegal business model. Hmmm… should I get my heart meds from Ch…eap.Druqz4U or from the local Rexall? If I can afford to get medication through legitimate sources, it’s a bit of a no-brainer. Of course, if the choice is going without or rolling the dice on buying from an unknown website… well…
Really, the drugs in actual Canadian pharmacies are inspected by Health Canada and meet a comparable standard as those inspected by the FDA. You wouldn’t argue that American drugs are potentially unsafe because Billy Raver has been selling adulterated or mislabeled Viagra at warehouse parties, would you?
Perhaps. But, like you said, even if we had manufacturers, compounders, and pharmacies in Canada registering with the FDA, getting inspected, and following US style GMPs, the internet sellers are still going to be there. And people will still buy from them because they will still be significantly cheaper.
I’ve always believed that even if we set a legal and safe way to import Canadian drugs, they won’t stay cheaper for long. If they are just generic versions of American drugs, then there I don’t think there is a significant difference in price compared to American generics. And if they are a reimportation of an exclusive drug product manufactured in the US, then the manufacturer is not going to stand by and allow profits to go down the drain. He’s just going to stop exporting to Canada. Why sell products to Canada if they are going to take away from sales in this country where people will pay 10 times more?
Dr. Lao, the drugs that Americans buy over the internet are actually coming from legitimate sources, either shepherded by the state they live in, or from a pharmacist in Canada that they’ve already visited in person. (To date, less than 4% of Americans have bought drugs online, according to The Pew Internet and American Life Project.)
And, since patent laws in Canada are just as strong as they are in the U.S., the paxil, celebrex, or name-brand statin of your choice bought in Canada is exactly the same as what’s available in your local CVS or Rite-Aid. They’re not generic imitations of brand-name, unless that’s what you normally buy in the U.S.
The manufacturers have no choice but to continue providing Canadian pharmacies with medication. For one, many of the so-called ‘American drugs’ are actually made in Canada or the U.S., depending on where the plant is (Pfizer and Merck, along with two dozen other biotech companies, have plants in Montreal), so thanks to NAFTA shutting the border is not an option.
Secondly, every Big Pharma company that has tried to cut off a Canadian pharmacist that sells to Americans has faced a public relations nightmare. There’s no way to shut out a pharmacy without also cutting out supplies intended for Canadian patients. I’m sure that if such a situation came to pass, the Federal Government would make it very interesting for any big pharma company that spontaneously decided not to sell a necessary medication in Canada.
Third, it’s not like the supply of medication is limited or restricted in any way. Pharma companies want to sell as much as they can, as quickly as they can, before patents expire. They’ve simply had to accept (for decades) that profits outside the U.S. will be lower because of government-negotiated price controls. They charge whatever the market will bear, and Canadians and Europeans have been smart enough to band together and lower the price of medications. If Americans aren’t smart enough to do that, well, it’s gravy for Big Pharma.
I did like the mental image of hordes of Canadians dropping to the streets like flies, clutching their throats with one hand and the prescription bottles in the other, and then cursing our defective drug-testing scheme as they gutter and die.
The problem is simple, folks: when the prescription drugs are imported into the United States, they are automagically infected with a dose of the pharmesuticalcompaniesoutrageousprofitsitis virus. People who injest these drugs are lulled into a false sense of security, and feel they don’t have to pay for the equivalent domestic, overpriced, chemically-identical medications that’re available in the USA.
Stop the spread of pharmesuticalcompaniesoutrageousprofitsitis! Just say no to affordable medicine!
As other posters have pointed out (Dr. Lao’s ridiculous accusations notwithstanding), Canadian pharmaceutical standards are very similar to FDA standards, just not identical. I can understand the FDA being reluctant to give carte-blanche to Canadian-approved drugs, but being willing to ‘fast-track’ whatever process they feel is necessary to review the drugs most urgently needed. Much of the testing and trials documentation required by Canadian regulators should be quite applicable to an FDA review.
However, I understand your point. It’s one thing for the FDA to be unwilling to take responsibility for the use of drugs that they don’t have detailed information on. It’s quite another for legislators to suggest that Canadian drugs might be unsafe for Americans to buy, period.
I have no problem with Bush supporting the major drug companies by preventing the purchasing of Canadian drugs by Americans. If the drug companies loose too much money because Americans are not buying their products for higher prices in the USA, and instead are purchasing those same products for less in Canada, then the drug companies will simply reduce the volume of product they ship to Canada, which will hurt me as a Canadian. I would much rather that the USA establish a health care system that deals with such problems directly rather than drain is neighbour.