by Gabriel Levitt, President, PharmacyChecker.com and Prescription Justice | May 23, 2019 | Drug Prices
Extra! Extra! Get your highly discounted FDA-approved generic drugs at local U.S. pharmacies using the free PharmacyChecker Prescription Discount Card.
That’s right, folks. There’s no need to buy online and import from Canada, or even from India, to save money when it comes to most commonly dispensed generic drugs.
We
researched prices of the 40 most commonly dispensed generic drugs in the
U.S. to compare them to ones offered at accredited pharmacies in Canada. Four
of the generics are controlled drugs, which are not available to U.S. consumers
from PharmacyChecker-accredited international online pharmacies; and two of
them are not available in Canada. Out of
the 34 drugs we compared prices on, 88% were cheaper in the U.S. than in Canada
and at an average savings of 68%.
Here’s a wild example:
(more…)Tagged with: drug discount card, Lisinopril, meloxicam
by Gabriel Levitt, President, PharmacyChecker.com and Prescription Justice | May 10, 2019 | Big Pharma
Rochester Drug Cooperative, a large pharmacy wholesaler
accredited by the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy (NABP), pleaded
guilty last week to illegal sales of opioid drugs, including oxycodone and
fentanyl. The NABP operates a program called Verified Authorized Wholesale
Distribution (VAWD). According to its website, NABP VAWD accreditation helps
“ensure that the wholesale distribution facility operates legitimately, is
licensed in good standing, and is employing security and best practices for
safely distributing prescription drugs from manufacturers to pharmacies and
other institutions.”
The nation’s largest pharmacy wholesalers, McKesson,
Amerisource Bergen, and Cardinal Health – companies with many NABP-accredited
facilities – have all paid fines related to civil or criminal charges of
illegal opioid drug sales, including fentanyl. Along with large
drug companies, like Purdue Pharma, Johnson & Johnson, and Insys
Therapeutics, the main arteries of American’s “legitimate” drug distribution
supply chain are accused
of causing the opioid epidemic with 218,000 opioid-related deaths over the
last 20 years.
(more…)Tagged with: NABP, opioids, VAWD, wholesale
by Gabriel Levitt, President, PharmacyChecker.com and Prescription Justice | May 3, 2019 | Drug Safety
In their opposition to drug importation legislation, the myriad “non-profit” groups funded by drug companies often cynically invoke the evils of counterfeit drugs. We’ve seen this as recently as this week, when an importation bill triumphantly passed in Florida (Prescription Drug Importation Programs HB19). One such group, the Partnership for Safe Medicines, was called out by PolitiFact for essentially lying that the new state law would “allow” imports from China “without FDA inspection,” tacking on that “too many have already died from counterfeit drugs.”
The Florida drug importation bill builds in so many
regulatory checks that it may in fact make importation from Canada into Florida
safer than our “regular” drug supply chain, but that’s for another post. As it
happens, no one has ever been reported killed by a non-controlled prescription
drug imported from a pharmacy that required a valid prescription.
PolitiFact is right to call out PSM, but I’m sad to report
that, yes, there is a very real counterfeit drug problem in the United States.
But, unlike the fake counterfeit drug facts propagated by groups like PSM to
scare people away from buying lower-cost medicines online, it comes in the form
of illegal fentanyl ingredients used
to make counterfeit prescription narcotics.
(more…)Tagged with: Counterfeit Drugs, opioids, pill presses
