A new Chinese law (in effect as of December 1, 2019) makes third-party
online platform medicine sales legal, appropriately ends a draconian definition
of counterfeit drugs, and effectively decriminalizes personal drug importation,
but with a lot of gray! The changes were part of a major overhaul of the Drug Administrative Law
of the People’s Republic of China (DAL). The previous linked to page is in
Chinese but you can use Google translate to read it in English or another
language. A summary in English can be found here:
Millions of people are dying because they are not getting the healthcare they need and that includes prescription drugs. New research has made a slam dunk case for why international online pharmacy options are needed urgently. We can’t allow drug companies to continue fooling the public about drug importation.
A Gallup
Poll survey announced yesterday found that 34 million Americans know
someone who died because they could not afford medical treatments. That doesn’t
mean prescription drug affordability specifically was the cause. In fact, the
Gallup Poll lacks details about what kinds of medical treatments were too
expensive. However, the poll identifies that a rising percentage of Americans
are reporting going without prescriptions because of cost: from 18.9% in
January to 22.9% in September of 2019. That would be about 58 million Americans
who say they did not fill a prescription in the past 12 months because of cost.
Since pharmacies in other countries charge much lower prices, and properly
credentialed international online pharmacies make those drugs available, the
veracity of the title of this blog post is undeniable.
There are few people more supportive than I am of prescription drug importation as one policy to help Americans access lower drug prices. But, since I accuse Big Pharma types and the FDA of ignoring reality about the safety of personal drug imports from licensed pharmacies in Canada and other countries, I won’t ignore reality! Canada is concerned about momentum on drug importation coming from the Trump administration and states, particularly Florida, citing its relatively small population and limited drug supplies. The answer is not to pull back on importation, but to expand the scope of countries in the supply network.
As reported in Reuters earlier this week, the Canadian Ambassador to the U.S. stated that she is “sympathetic to U.S. concerns regarding affordable prescription drugs.” On the other hand, she said, “Not only are we too small of a market, Canada cannot increase its domestic pharmaceutical drug supply to meet U.S. demand…” It’s not incredibly cynical of me to suggest that drug company lobbyists, who work internationally, have spoken with Canadian diplomats and said, “Look, we’re not going to increase your supply of far less expensive medicine just so Florida’s state importation plan can work and Trump can get a political win.”
A report (“A Painful Pill to Swallow: U.S. vs. International Prescription Drug Prices”) was released this week by the Congressional House Ways and Means Committee, showing that brand name drug prices are much lower – by about 75% on average – in other high-income countries. Who knew? Well, our analysis from this past summer showed that the average savings on popular brand drugs filled through online orders with Canadian pharmacies was 75%. When including pharmacies in other countries, the savings jumped to 90%. Those include pharmacies located in middle income countries, such as Turkey. For the record, these are comparisons among PharmacyChecker-accredited online pharmacies.
The committee’s report looked at prices of 79 brand name
drugs in the following countries: Australia, Canada (specifically Ontario),
Denmark, France, Germany, Japan, Netherlands, Portugal, Sweden, Switzerland,
and the United Kingdom. I highly recommend reading this report if you want to
learn about international drug price differentials and better understand how
Americans are getting ripped off.
This week, Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA) sent a letter to the Secretary of Health and Human Services and FDA Commissioner declaring support for the Trump administration’s drug importation plan but warning about the need to up our game inspecting foreign drug manufacturing establishments. Grassley cautioned that the U.S. must ensure new imports are properly tracked and traced within the supply chain. While there are some details in Grassley’s recently stated position that are a bit blurry, the essence of what the senator is saying is very good. We can use global trade to force down prices on prescription drugs in the U.S. while continuing to work on and improve the safety of our already-existing global pharmaceutical supply.
Senator Grassley has vociferously supported drug importation
for a long time. As reported
in The Hill in 2012, he was intensely critical of President Obama for going
back on his 2008 campaign promise to support dug importation:
This week, the Trump administration formally announced support for not only state prescription drug importation programs, but also HHS Secretary Alex Azar’s own importation plan. Until this week, it was known that Trump had instructed Secretary Azar to work with Republican Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida to help implement its new law to permit wholesale drug importation from Canada for public payers, which also includes importation from other countries for the private market. Now, there is real movement.
Before diving into Trump’s drug importation plan more fully, please take note that this plan actually allows for the importation of what the FDA has called “foreign unapproved drugs,” ones that they have said they don’t want Americans ordering online and importing for their own use. These drugs, as explained below, are safe and effective foreign brand versions of the same drugs sold here. This recognition of equivalent brand drug safety is a step in the right direction.
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