by Gabriel Levitt, President, PharmacyChecker.com and Prescription Justice | Mar 12, 2021 | Big Pharma
With nostalgia, I’m announcing that PharmacyCheckerBlog will no longer be updated with new posts effective today. If you’re looking for similar news, analysis, and editorial efforts, check out PolicyPrescription.com.
Over 20 years ago, pharmacies in Canada began selling prescription drugs to Americans over the Internet. PharmacyChecker.com opened its virtual doors in 2003 to provide consumers, mostly in America, with information that helps them find the most affordable and safe prescription drugs from online pharmacies, including those located in Canada and other countries. This made the pharmaceutical industry mad at us. The industry doesn’t want Americans to have access to lower drug prices in other countries. They went on the attack.
Eleven years ago, PharmacyCheckerBlog was launched in large part to fight back against efforts funded by the pharmaceutical industry to discredit PharmacyChecker and sow disinformation about online pharmacies that scared Americans away from obtaining safe and more affordable prescription drugs from Canada and other countries.
The reality is that, over the years, PharmacyCheckerBlog has become a website where I write posts mostly about public policy, politics, and law as it relates to drug prices, drug importation, online pharmacies, and safety. I enjoy the subject matter and advocating for lower prescription prices in America – and pushing back against the misinformation propagated by Big Pharma! I will continue doing so at a new website called PolicyPrescription.com.
PharmacyChecker will continue fighting back! For those posts, you’ll need to go to PharmacyChecker.com.
For a fuller history of PharmacyCheckerBlog, click here.
by Gabriel Levitt, President, PharmacyChecker.com and Prescription Justice | Mar 5, 2021 | Drug Importation
For the benefit of consumers, I published a longish but straightforward explanation of the state wholesale drug importation bills, laws, and programs and how they differ from personal importation. I reviewed the drug relabeling section of Florida’s Drug Importation Program submission to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and it really tells a story. Many if not most of the drugs that states propose to import from Canada are not made in Canada or the U.S. Both countries import a majority of their pharmaceuticals. They often come from the same countries and factories and are the exact same drugs. The reason the prices are so high in the U.S. is usually blamed on patents, which lead to what some call monopolistic pricing. Another reason drug prices are so much higher in the U.S. is that drug manufacturers have had a monopoly on commercial importation. It’s a very special protection that states are trying to remove through these programs.
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by Gabriel Levitt, President, PharmacyChecker.com and Prescription Justice | Feb 25, 2021 | Politics and policy
These are unique times we’re living in, so before I criticize this guy for his Big Pharma love, I feel compelled to hand him a well-earned compliment: Senator Richard Burr (R-NC) acted heroically in voting to impeach former President Trump in the wake of the violent January 6th assault on Congress. Whether or not you agree with Burr’s vote, history shows politicians rarely cross the aisle to impeach someone in their own party. Senator Burr’s vote was courageous. I stand by that even though he decided not to run for re-election in 2022.
People (like me) often accuse politicians of carrying water for Big Pharma so that they will receive large campaign contributions from the industry. During Sen. Burr’s last campaign in 2016, he received over $200,000 in campaign contributions from drug companies. These contributions contributed to him receiving an F grade on drug prices on the Prescription Justice Congressional Report Card. Even though he is not facing an election in 2022, Sen. Burr continues to espouse public policy beliefs and talking points of the multinational pharmaceutical industry. So maybe he is genuinely a believer in the pharmaceutical industry being able to charge anything it wants for life-saving medications because that’s the business model supposedly supporting wonderful advances in biomedical research. Maybe.
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