by Lucia Mueller, President, PharmacyChecker.com | Jun 30, 2017 | Advocacy
Amidst Washington’s vapid attempt at “solving” healthcare, Americans continue dealing with the everyday obstacles that come with prioritizing our families’ health, and all the while, prescription drug costs just keep rising. Minority communities are particularly at risk.
The crisis of rising drug costs expands beyond minority groups, but studies show that Hispanics are more likely to forgo filling a prescription due to cost than the population at large. Worse, as immigrants increasingly fear leaving their homes, undocumented immigrants will be less likely to get needed medications. Wherever you stand on the immigration issue, this trend is unacceptable and must be combatted by educating all people about lower cost drugs available abroad, but some people are getting this wrong…
In a recent op-ed written by Garfield Clunie and Richard Williams and published in Morning Consult, a well-meaning yet dangerous claim is made—that “if [Congress permits the importation of prescription medicines from other countries], the United States government will actually be promoting the use of counterfeit and unsafe medications.” This is simply false. (more…)
Tagged with: garfield clunie, minorities, Online Pharmacies, personal drug importation, richard williams
by Gabriel Levitt, President, PharmacyChecker.com and Prescription Justice | Jun 26, 2017 | Advocacy, Controlled Drugs, Politics
Pharma-sponsored lackeys are using the hellish opioid crisis as an excuse to bash Senator Bernie Sanders’ drug importation bill, claiming it will worsen the crisis. This is all the more aggravating in light of the role of the pharmaceutical industry in causing the opioid death spiral in America in the first place. High drug prices and opioid abuse, such as lawful and illegal fentanyl use, are both killers. I published an article in The Hill on Friday called a Tale of Two Drug Bills to address this issue.
Tagged with: fentanyl, stop, synthetic opioid
by Gabriel Levitt, President, PharmacyChecker.com and Prescription Justice | Jun 8, 2017 | Advocacy
Getting some prescription justice
This week, the group Prescription Justice sent a letter to Congress (House and Senate) signed by prominent non-profit activist and policy organizations – and PharmacyChecker.com (we were the only company!) – that clearly recognizes the lifeline of personal drug importation and the role that safe international online pharmacies play. The focus of the letter is support for the Affordable and Safe Prescription Drug Importation Act of 2017, which would help expand lawful options for importing lower cost medication, through retail and wholesale commerce. I wrote about this drug importation legislation a couple of months ago.
Too frequently I read articles in support or against drug importation that both drive me nuts. You’d think that I love the former and hate the latter but that’s not the case. I’m often equally annoyed when the authors either don’t know or care to write about the reality of prescription drug importation where people just go online, order their medication from Canada or another country, send in their valid prescriptions and get it by mail. As the letter iterates:
“Despite the federal restrictions, millions of Americans already import life-saving medications for their own use. While this practice can be done safely through properly credentialed international online pharmacies, it poses a real danger to patient safety because of rogue Internet drug sellers.”
And that’s why PharmacyChecker.com does what we do: verify and identify the safest international online options, educate and warn about rogue pharmacies, and get vocal about it. While the drug companies are obscenely powerful and are spending through the teeth to create anti-importation op-eds and reports, and giving members of Congress lots of money, the truth is a pretty powerful adversary as well. And importing medication from a licensed pharmacy in Canada (and many other countries) is, in the real world of facts, safe. (more…)
Tagged with: Congress, importation, letter, prescription justice
by Gabriel Levitt, President, PharmacyChecker.com and Prescription Justice | May 19, 2017 | Advocacy, Policy, Public Health, Skipping medications
According to a Zogby Poll (see graphic) conducted in February of this year, 31.6% of Americans who said they have never ordered a medication online from another country cited fear of substandard drugs. Another 32.3% cited the law restricting the practice. Most often (44%) people said they preferred to get medication from local pharmacists, which I liked – but I’m aware that for that group affordability was less of an issue.
What bothers me is that out of the 45 million Americans who did not fill a prescription in 2016 due to cost, how many would have been able to if educated properly about safe international online pharmacies or if the law was more permissive? (more…)
Tagged with: scare tactics, zogby
by Gabriel Levitt, President, PharmacyChecker.com and Prescription Justice | Apr 12, 2017 | Advocacy, Healthcare Reform, Personal Drug Importation, Saving Money on Prescription Drugs
A new book about our ailing healthcare system.
In her new book, American Sickness, Elisabeth Rosenthal, MD, an award-winning journalist, currently chief editor of Kaiser Health News, and formerly with the New York Times, recommends visiting PharmacyChecker.com to consumers who choose to import more affordable medications for themselves or their family members via online pharmacies.
In general, Ms. Rosenthal’s book explains why our healthcare system is such a mess in terms of consumer and government costs; who is responsible; how we can make things better – and most importantly – what consumers can do NOW to take on the special interests and save money. It’s a great book for citizens, healthcare advocates and policy makers who want a deeper understanding of what ails our healthcare system. (more…)
Tagged with: american sickness, Elisabeth Rosenthal
by Gabriel Levitt, President, PharmacyChecker.com and Prescription Justice | Apr 6, 2017 | Advocacy, John Horton, LegitScript
The head of LegitScript.com, John Horton, likes to falsely claim that PharmacyChecker “pretends” that international online pharmacies are “just Canadian” when they “really” sell drugs from other countries. The only one pretending, as usual, is Mr. Horton.
To offer the most affordable prices, online pharmacies in Canada give consumers the option to have prescriptions filled not only by licensed pharmacies in Canada, but by licensed pharmacies following similarly strict pharmacy practices in other countries with even lower drug prices. We believe this is in the consumer’s best interest and we have said so many times, including a news release in 2004 and a blog post called “So You Want to Buy Medication from An Actual Canadian Pharmacy, Here’s the Deal…”
To be sure this is done properly, the online pharmacies verified by PharmacyChecker must disclose to us all partner pharmacies — as we must check and verify their credentials — and the online pharmacies are required to let consumers know, ahead of time, the country from which their medications will be dispensed. Furthermore, our listing of PharmacyChecker.com Verified Online Pharmacies includes the names of the countries from which each online pharmacy dispenses prescription medications.
Of course, there are many rogue pharmacies to watch out for that claim to be Canadian, or even American, but don’t require a prescription, and are not verified for any standards by any organization. We should all work together to protect consumers from such rogues, not fool Americans into believing that safe international online pharmacies don’t exist – which appears to be the approach favored by Mr. Horton, LegitScript, and Pharma-funded groups.
We assume that John Horton and his big pharma allies and shills will continue to attack us because of our continuing efforts to verify and identify the safest international online pharmacies, advocate for safe personal drug importation, reveal pharma’s scare tactics and expose their lies. We can deal with that. It’s just a shame that they do it at the expense of Americans who need affordable medication but may be scared away from the reliable pharmacies that are available.
Amidst Washington’s vapid attempt at “solving” healthcare, Americans continue dealing with the everyday obstacles that come with prioritizing our families’ health, and all the while, prescription drug costs just keep rising. Minority communities are particularly at risk.
