The Deadly Problem of High Drug Costs and How Personal Drug Importation Helps
High prescription drug prices continue to be a public health crisis in America and the problem appears to have worsened throughout 2012. The added healthcare costs to the economy caused by Americans not taking their medication have increased from $290 billion to $313 billion. According to a study by the New England Healthcare Institute, over one million Americans die each year because they do not correctly take needed medications or do not take them at all. Though not all of those deaths are due to cost, it’s fair to estimate that hundreds of thousands of Americans are dying each year because drug costs are the number one reason for people not taking prescribed medications. It follows that all avenues of access to safe and affordable medication save lives, including access to safe online pharmacies with the lowest drug prices, international or domestic, which are a real lifeline for American consumers. Therefore, the federal statute banning personal drug importation under most circumstances doesn’t change the fact that current access to safe personal drug importation is good for the public health.
Savings Online Internationally Have Increased; U.S. Has Best Deals on Generics
Online pharmacy savings increased in 2012 due to lower international pharmacy prices coupled with extreme drug price increases – 13 % — in the United States. The potential savings on popular brand name drugs increased to 85% in November 2012 from 80% in March 2011, according to PharmacyChecker.com research. Online pharmacy savings are greatest on brand name medications, which when purchased internationally often help Americans save thousands of dollars each year. Some American lives are saved by online access to international pharmacies. In stark contrast to pricing on brand name drugs, U.S. generic drug prices remained globally competitive and offered Americans their best bet on many popular medications available generically at U.S. pharmacies, such as Walmart’s $4 discount programs, and usage of prescription drug discount cards. And because many popular drugs, such as Lipitor and Plavix, are now sold generically in the U.S., we can expect a shift from international to domestic pharmacies in 2013.
Rogue Online Pharmacies vs. High Drug Prices: Which is More Dangerous?
Rogue online pharmacies are a serious public health threat and need to be put out of business, but the draconian public health consequences of Americans going without needed medication due to cost is a much bigger problem. While one death is too many, very few Americans have died from rogue online pharmacies, domestic or foreign. In dire contrast, as mentioned above, it’s estimated that over one million Americans die each year from not taking needed medication with U.S. drug costs identified as the main culprit behind Americans going without prescribed medication. It’s worth noting that the research showing this sobering data was funded in part by pharmaceutical companies, including PhRMA and Pfizer (Read the research by the New England Health Institute. Follow this hyperlink to the full report; the sponsors are made clear).
The Media Storm of Misinformation on Online Pharmacies
It’s not a freakish editorial accident that the media appears far more interested in reporting about the evils of online pharmacies, especially foreign ones, and their dangers, than the national disgrace of high drug prices causing bankruptcy, sickness, hospitalization and death. The amazing profits of the global pharmaceutical industry are overwhelmingly dependent on charging U.S. consumers the world’s highest prescription drug prices. Preventing Americans from access to lower international drug prices is obviously one of their major goals. The power of the pharmaceutical and the U.S. pharmacy industries, exercised through billions of dollars spent on advertising, lobbying, and media relations, has led to the mainstream media propagating a false narrative about an online marketplace in which it’s not safe to buy lower priced medication from non-U.S. online pharmacies under any circumstances. We’ve written about most of the groups responsible for perpetuating the false narrative:
With the exception of CSIP, each of the groups above receives funding or revenue from the pharmaceutical industry, U.S. pharmacy industry, and/or the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. They all conflate the evils of dangerous rogue online pharmacies with the safe practice of personal drug importation from safe online pharmacies, mostly based in Canada. While FDA’s policies continue to allow Americans to personally import prescription medication, the FDA now engages fully in promoting the industry-sponsored media script. CSIP is largely the brain child of the White House Office of the Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator, an office dedicated to protecting intellectual property rights and strenuously lobbied and influenced by the pharmaceutical industry.
The Truth About Online Pharmacies
There are many international online pharmacies, mostly based in Canada, that have operated safely and ethically for over a decade. Independent research demonstrates that there are clearly safe online pharmacies, international and domestic,including those approved by PharmacyChecker.com. Safe international online pharmacies meet the same or similar standards as U.S. mail-order pharmacies. Their main difference is that they sell medication at a much lower price than U.S. pharmacies. They are not rogue online pharmacies. It’s that simple.
The dangers of rogue online pharmacies are very serious. Such rogues purport to be real and safe pharmacies when often they are not selling from licensed sources, requiring prescriptions or following other basic pharmacy safety protocols. Some online pharmacies are even operated by organized crime groups. And some sell deadly products.
Online Pharmacies in 2013
In 2012, law enforcement successfully shutdown more dangerous rogue sites. We should all applaud and encourage further efforts to crackdown on rogue online pharmacies. But we should also expose misinformation being spread by the pharmaceutical industry about safe international online pharmacies. Their misinformation directly leads to Americans going without medication because people are scared away from online pharmacies that sell the medications they need at a price they can afford.
To help protect the ability of Americans to safely import affordable prescription medication, we encourage you to become part of the RxRights.org movement. Join RxRights.org and contact your elected officials now to let them know Americans need access to safe medication that is affordable, including through personal drug importation.
American consumers should be able and encouraged to purchase safe medication at the lowest possible prices, whether domestically or internationally. Federal and state laws that decrease access to safe and affordable medication are neither ethical nor conducive to protecting the public health. Comparing drug prices among licensed and safe pharmacies and making this information available online for consumers helps maximize access while greatly minimizing risks: PharmacyChecker.com will proudly as ever continue to do so in 2013.
The City of Portland, Maine, is up in arms because the Maine Attorney General recently shutdown that city’s personal drug importation program, Portlandmeds, as reported by the Press Herald. Portlandmeds has saved the city $3.2 million over the past eight years, and is a clear example of a municipal drug importation program that has worked extremely well.
Public response has been critical of the ban. A Press Herald survey asked “Should Maine allow residents to purchased prescription drugs from Canada?” The response: 715 out of 769 – 93% – voted yes.
Portland City Mayor Michael Brennan and other city officials expressed their grievances to 9 of 10 of Portland’s State lawmakers, asking them to back a bill allowing Maine residents to import medication from Canada as well as other countries. Mayor Brennan communicated that Maine’s governor, Paul LePage also supports the resumption of the drug importation program.
Opponents of personal drug importation are almost always funded by corporate interests seeking to protect their profits. The opposition in Maine is no exception. The Retail Association of Maine, which includes on its executive board employees of huge pharmacy chains Walgreens and Walmart, vehemently opposes Portlandmeds. As reported in the Press Herald, that association’s executive director’s communicated: “CanaRx is not licensed to do business in Maine…That makes it difficult to know exactly where the drugs are coming from, and possibly puts patients at risk.” CanaRx – the Canadian pharmacy dispensing medication for the Portlandmeds program, is duly licensed in Canada where the medication is just as safe as the medication sold in the United States. We don’t know of a single adverse health effect after eight years of the successful Portlandmeds program.
Congratulations to President Obama on his re-election. We hope his next administration will heed the stories Americans are telling about their struggles to afford prescription medication. On that note, we loudly applaud our friends at RxRights.org for continuing to fight for Americans who are struggling to afford needed medication. A new webpage from RxRights.org brings testimonials from hundreds of Americans across the country into one place. Their stories remind us why access by Americans to safe, foreign online pharmacies is a matter of protecting the public health, and that blocking access will only endanger it.
Below are two excerpts from the new RxRights.org testimonial page:
“Current purchases of medicine from licensed online Canadian pharmacies are saving my wife and me at least $1000 per month and mean the difference between us living or dying. Without these meds, we would both be dead by now…” — Florida.
“My husband has COPD and in three months with Part D he is in the donut hole. Thank God for our Canadian pharmacy, they have helped to keep him alive for many years” — New York
A new organization, the Center for Safe Internet Pharmacies (CSIP) – safemedsonline.org – made its debut yesterday. Unfortunately, the group seems more focused on keeping its big corporate members in the good graces of the pharmaceutical industry and government than on helping American consumers. In fact, its actions may endanger public health.
The Center for Safe Internet Pharmacies has two main activities. The first is to educate, or more accurately, “scare,” the public away from using “illegal” pharmacies, which appear to include licensed and safe pharmacies outside the U.S. which sell genuine but lower priced medicine to Americans. The second is to work with the U.S. government to “shut down” chosen online pharmacies by blocking their ability to appear in online searches and to accept payments.
CSIP has handed over the job of deciding which online pharmacies are okay to LegitScript, which has its own suspect past and intentions. All non-US online pharmacies are branded “not approved” by LegitScript on the basis that it’s technically illegal to personally import most medications – even though the government, in its wisdom, has permitted it. Moreover, it appears that LegitScript is essentially a private sector extension of the FDA as evidenced by its $2.6 million government contract.
As part of its launch, the Center for Safe Internet Pharmacies produced a scare video showing a caring, young woman go online to research and order lower-priced medication online for an elderly relative. The relative then falls ill and the young woman worries that the medicine may have been fake or even “rat poison” and, through the miracle of video, the clock is rolled back, the medicine is never ordered, and all is somehow well without the medicine.
This far-fetched horror flick is far more likely to scare people away from affordable medicine than keep them safe. It’s an indisputable fact that for more than a decade millions of Americans, many of whom have trouble paying for prescription medication in the United States, have safely filled their prescriptions, at much lower prices, through online pharmacies in Canada and other countries. Independent research has also shown that medicine ordered from sites approved by PharmacyChecker.com or the VIPPS Program is genuine. If CSIP’s well-funded public relations team could have found a person who was actually injured by ordering medicine with a prescription from an online pharmacy, they would not have had to create a fictitious character and story.
There are plenty of rogue pharmacies out there which CSIP can help root out – ones that sell fake medicine and don’t require prescriptions. We hope CSIP decides to focus all of its attention on these real dangers. If not, the real horror story could turn out to be CSIP itself when its actions increase the number of people who go without needed medication or are left impoverished due to prices at pharmacies of which CSIP “approves.”
Americans are speaking out against the provisions of a new law signed by President Obama on July 9th that will hinder their access to safe and affordable medication. In a news story last week on a Minneapolis-St. Paul NBC affiliate, Kare 11, we learn about Minnesotans who could be negatively affected by Section 708 of Food and Drug Administration Innovation and Safety Act, which allows for the seizure and destruction of personally imported medication.
Rico Anderson imports his prescription medicine for Crohn’s disease from Canada, paying $135 for a one month supply. In the U.S., this medicine would cost over $700 a month. That’s almost $7,000 dollars in annual savings. In contemplating having to face higher U.S. prices, Mr. Rico lamented that: “if it gets to a point where you’re deciding if you have to buy your medicine or pay your mortgage or put food on your table what are you going to do?”
The NBC report features Lee Graczyk, lead organizer of RxRights, a prescription affordability advocacy group. Days before the law passed Mr. Graczyk emphasized both the economic and health costs that result from unaffordable medication: “People are using this option because they cannot afford to buy the medications here. If this law passes, they can’t afford to buy the medications and stop taking the medications, they not only put their health at risk, but as a nation, it’s going to cost us more money.”
Visit RxRights.org to learn how Americans can fight back and protect their access to safe personal prescription drug importation from verified online pharmacies.
To compare prices on prescription medication from Canada and other foreign countries visit PharmacyChecker.com.
Americans die and get sicker every day because they can’t afford their medications.
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act will help provide health insurance for millions of Americans, reducing the cost of their medications. But we’re not there yet! We’ve compiled statistics – see below – on the negative health effects of prescription non-adherence due to cost. Our country needs greater access to safe and affordable medication now, including through verified international online pharmacies that offer far lower prices on essential medications.
Here are the stats:
25 million Americans report becoming sicker because they are not taking medication due to its cost. 1
An estimated 150 million prescriptions go unfilled each year due to prescription costs.2,3
125,000 deaths occur per year among patients with heart disease due to prescription non-adherence. And that’s just for heart disease. The number of deaths per year among all conditions due to cost-related non-adherence is unknown. 4
Americans who skip medication due to cost are almost twice as likely to experience a significant decline in overall health over 2 years of follow up.5
USA Today/Kaiser Family Foundation/ Harvard School of Public Health Health Care Costs Survey, 2005. 20% of survey respondents report not filling a prescription due to cost; and 54% of those said their condition got worse as a result. Extrapolated to the 2012 population of adults 18 and older, (234,564,071), that is 25 million.
McCarthy R. The Price You Pay for the Drug Not Taken. Business Health 1998. Reports that 20% of prescriptions go unfilled, and 15% of those go unfilled because the drug costs are too high.
IMS National Prescription Audit PLUS reports 4.024 billion prescriptions dispensed in 2011. If 80% of prescriptions written are dispensed, then 5.03 billion prescriptions were written. 15% of 20% of 5.03 billion is around 150 million prescriptions forgone due to cost.
McCarthy, R. The Price You Pay for the Drug Not Taken.Business Health 1998. Quote from Daniel Gerner, chairman at the time of Healthcare Compliance Packaging Council.
Heisler et. al, The Health Effects of Restricting Prescription Medication Use Because of Cost. Medical Care, Volume 42, Number 7, July 2004
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A source for news and analysis about drug prices and safety, online pharmacies and personal drug importation, published on behalf of American consumers.
