by Gabriel Levitt, President, PharmacyChecker.com and Prescription Justice | Mar 15, 2019 | Online Pharmacies
Back in 2008, Consumer Reports recommended PharmacyChecker to Americans looking to save money on prescription drugs at foreign pharmacies. An article in the Los Angeles Times stated: “Consumer Reports Best Buy Drugs advises checking online prices, for U.S. and foreign pharmacies, at pharmacychecker.com.”
That was then. This is now.
When Consumer Reports’ Lisa Gill testified before the Senate
Special Committee on Aging hearing on drug prices last week, she was silent
in her prepared remarks about what she knows well: millions of Americans,
readers of Consumer Reports, buy medicine online internationally. Her silence
did not surprise me because Consumer Reports does not currently recommend
buying medicine online from Canada or other countries, although many of its
readers believe it should.
(more…)Tagged with: American Enterprise Institute, Consumer Reports
by Gabriel Levitt, President, PharmacyChecker.com and Prescription Justice | Mar 8, 2019 | FDA enforcement
Last week, in a warning letter and press release, the FDA went to great lengths to demonize what appears to be an exceedingly safe personal prescription drug importation program offered by a Canadian company called CanaRx Services, Inc. I believe the agency crossed the line with bad advice to patients. In a nutshell, about 500 U.S. cities, companies, and other organizations use CanaRx to offer their employees and retirees a lower-cost international pharmacy option. The prescription medicines are mailed from licensed pharmacies in Canada, Australia and the United Kingdom to U.S. consumers. CanaRx’s programs have been in effect for almost 20 years and helped taxpayers and patients save $250 million, according to the company.
(more…)Tagged with: CanaRx, Enforcement, Scott Gottlieb
by Gabriel Levitt, President, PharmacyChecker.com and Prescription Justice | Feb 28, 2019 | Drug Importation
Good news for New Yorkers who want freedom of choice to fill their prescriptions at pharmacies located where they are more affordable: in other countries. There is now an explicit exception to the electronic prescription (e-prescribing) law in New York that permits paper prescriptions to be filled in other countries. I’m sorry we didn’t catch this earlier, but here it is now. As of January 2017, according to the NY State Department of Health, one exception to e-prescribing, which allows a provider to write a paper prescription, is when the medicine is:
“…dispensed by a pharmacy located outside the state, outside the country, or on federal property, including and not limited to the following examples; Veterans Administration, West Point, Fort Drum, and Indian Reservations;”
When e-prescribing became mandatory in NY, people had a hard
time obtaining paper prescriptions. This was not just an inconvenience. It was
a threat to their access to affordable medicine. In our country, it’s sometimes
imperative to shop around and find the pharmacy that charges the lowest price
in our neighborhood – or in another country. This development should be very
helpful to people looking to shop around.
(more…)Tagged with: e-prescribing, New York, states
