by Gabriel Levitt, President, PharmacyChecker.com and Prescription Justice | Oct 4, 2019 | Drug Prices
If you care about and follow the issue of drug prices, then this week was bizarre on the political scene. In a press conference with Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) at her side, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) was imploring the media not to focus only on impeachment but on drug prices, noting that she believes Congress and President Trump can continue to work together despite the friction.
Yesterday, Trump was courting
seniors in Florida, extolling drug price reductions under his watch that
kind of, you know, never really happened and promising to save Medicare from
“socialism” (go figure, Medicare is already a huge government program).
Bizarrely, he implied that Big Pharma might have something to do with the
impeachment inquiry against him. Maybe his Secretary of Health and Human
Services, former Eli Lilly Pres. Alex Azar, is in on the “coup”… just
joking.
In the haze of the political circus, something fundamental
keeps getting lost. During Trump’s 2016 campaign, the only policy he put
forward on his website to bring down drug prices was drug importation. See
below screenshot:
(more…)Tagged with: Adam Schiff, Lower Drug Costs Now Act, Nancy Pelosi
by Gabriel Levitt, President, PharmacyChecker.com and Prescription Justice | Sep 26, 2019 | Drug Importation
A report (“A Painful Pill to Swallow: U.S. vs. International Prescription Drug Prices”) was released this week by the Congressional House Ways and Means Committee, showing that brand name drug prices are much lower – by about 75% on average – in other high-income countries. Who knew? Well, our analysis from this past summer showed that the average savings on popular brand drugs filled through online orders with Canadian pharmacies was 75%. When including pharmacies in other countries, the savings jumped to 90%. Those include pharmacies located in middle income countries, such as Turkey. For the record, these are comparisons among PharmacyChecker-accredited online pharmacies.
The committee’s report looked at prices of 79 brand name
drugs in the following countries: Australia, Canada (specifically Ontario),
Denmark, France, Germany, Japan, Netherlands, Portugal, Sweden, Switzerland,
and the United Kingdom. I highly recommend reading this report if you want to
learn about international drug price differentials and better understand how
Americans are getting ripped off.
(more…)Tagged with: Congressional House Ways and Means Committee, External reference pricing
by Gabriel Levitt, President, PharmacyChecker.com and Prescription Justice | Sep 20, 2019 | Drug Safety
A lot of media coverage about counterfeit drug threats in the U.S. are spurred by the media relations efforts of organizations funded by pharmaceutical companies, such as the Alliance for Safe Online Pharmacies and Partnership for Safe Medicines. As I see it, their public education efforts conflate safe online sales of medicines imported by consumers in the U.S. with counterfeit drug sales and other forms of drug sales, ones that clearly harm patients. One such article that did not fall prey to the propaganda was published in Kaiser Health News’ California Healthline detailing street market sales of prescription drugs, including cases that involve counterfeit drugs and the dangers they pose. Journalists who are looking closely, checking the funding of organizations disseminating information about prescription drug importation, can help stop the propaganda of the pharmaceutical industry.
The Kaiser story, written by John M. Glionna, focuses on
Latino immigrant communities in which people can’t afford medication or, due to
their immigration status, are fearful of deportation if they go to federally-funded
clinics for medical treatments. Eight people were arrested and charged with
illegal street sales of prescription drugs, including injectables and
controlled drugs. Glionna describes the LA County authorities report:
(more…)Tagged with: Immigration, John M. Glionna, kaiser health news, Spanish
