by Gabriel Levitt, President, PharmacyChecker.com and Prescription Justice | Apr 4, 2019 | Drug Importation
Properly licensed foreign pharmacies help Americans access
medicines that they can’t afford here. Counterfeit drug makers and sellers,
fentanyl and opioid dealers, and dangerous pharmacy websites are worthy targets
of serious regulatory or criminal enforcement actions. There’s no gray there.
An article I wrote that was recently published in The Nation hopefully brings to greater public attention the FDA’s conflation of clearly safe channels for personal prescription imports with counterfeit drugs, the opioid crisis, and rogue online pharmacies. That conflation, one associated with the media relations work of the pharmaceutical industry – is used to justify FDA enforcement actions that exacerbate the crisis of high drug prices by threatening programs that facilitate prescription fulfillment from foreign, licensed pharmacies.
(more…)Tagged with: CanaRx, FDA, fentanyl
by Gabriel Levitt, President, PharmacyChecker.com and Prescription Justice | Mar 28, 2019 | Drug Safety
This week Purdue Pharma settled with the state of Oklahoma for $270 million to avoid a trial charging the company with what I call opioid drug dealing. Purdue Pharma and members of the Sackler family–founders and managers of the company–are enmeshed in 1,600 cases throughout the U.S. They are accused of illegal marketing activities that led to over-prescribing and rampant distribution of Oxycontin, which paved the way for millions to the addiction of opioids, with hundreds of thousands dying over the last decade.
It was not just Purdue but many drug companies—and the entire
drug supply chain—that fueled the opioid death spiral. As drug companies and
their allies in the drug supply chain continue to use the opioid crisis as a
means to oppose prescription drug importation to lower drug prices in the U.S.,
we can only look on with amazement at their audacity.
(more…)Tagged with: opioids, Purdue, Sacklers
by Gabriel Levitt, President, PharmacyChecker.com and Prescription Justice | Mar 22, 2019 | Big Pharma
Earlier this week, a report (the
“FGI Report”) opposing prescription drug importation proposals was released
by the law firm of Freeh, Sporkin and Sullivan LLP and the Freeh Group International.
Both organizations are headed by former FBI Director, Louis Freeh. I’m hesitant
to criticize reports authored by dedicated Americans who spent years in public
service protecting the safety of the American people in federal law enforcement.
On the other hand, the intent of tacking the name of a venerated American
patriot on a report that mirrors
the lobbying agenda of the pharmaceutical industry is clearly being used to
deter voices opposed to that agenda.
Summing it all up: this report was commissioned, I believe, by the drug company-funded group Partnership for Safe Medicines or a similar organization. As noted in the report’s title, it’s an addendum to an earlier report published in late 2017, one that was promoted at a Partnership for Safe Medicines media event at the National Press Club.
(more…)Tagged with: Alex Azar, Louis Freeh, Partnership for Safe Medicines
