by Gabriel Levitt, Vice President, PharmacyChecker.com and Sam Werbalowsky, Pharmacychecker.com | Sep 17, 2014 | Advocacy, Drug Importation, Personal Drug Importation
The opinions and research of two Americans, published this week in local newspapers, epitomize the position of millions of Americans: drug prices are too high and safe personal drug importation is a smart way to afford medication. Tom Kennedy compared prices between the U.S. and Canada in 2003, and he is doing it again 11 years later. His guest opinion in the Billings Gazette has shown that U.S. prices have increased 153% for the drugs he tracked since 2003, far outpacing the rise in income and cost of living. He has some good economic insight and analysis, and I recommend reading his whole opinion, which you can find here.
David Di Saia, from North Providence, Rhode Island, found that he could save $480 a year by using a Canadian pharmacy instead of the pharmacy associated with his Medicare plan. And that’s just the savings for one medication! Imagine the savings if he had to order more than one drug. You can read his story, which is “sad, but true” on the Valley Breeze website.
Tagged with: Billings Gazette, Drug Prices, Valley Breeze
by Gabriel Levitt, President, PharmacyChecker.com and Prescription Justice | Jul 2, 2014 | Advocacy, Personal Drug Importation, Politics
As we approach July 4th, a day to celebrate freedom in America, I urge you to stand up for your freedom to access safe and affordable medication!! Let’s face it: the global drug companies – big Pharma – would rather you pay higher prices for their medications because it makes them more money. In its infinite pandering to big Pharma, Congress included language in the Food and Drug Administration Safety and Innovation Act of 2012 (FDASIA) – an otherwise pretty useful drug safety bill – expanding the authority of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to destroy safe, personally imported medications. In the spirit of independence – life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness – take this time to send a message to the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) asking that she take the necessary actions to protect your prescription drug orders, ones ordered from safe international online pharmacies.
Thanks to RxRights.org for leading the charge on this effort!
The onerous language under discussion is found in Section 708 of FDASIA, which allows the FDA to destroy medication orders valued at $2500 or less that are refused import. The medications subject to refusal and destruction are those deemed “adulterated, misbranded or counterfeit.” Those words seem pretty scary but don’t be fooled. Unlike an adulterated or counterfeit drug, an imported ‘misbranded’ drug can be the same, safe and effective medication sold in a U.S. pharmacy but with a slightly different label. Seizing and destroying a person’s safe prescription drug order is immoral, anti-American, and dangerous to that person’s health.
There’s a catch in the law, which actually invokes the Spirit of 1776. Before Section 708 goes into effect, the HHS Secretary shall draft proposed regulations to provide consumers with due process to “challenge the decision to destroy the drug.” That means Americans should have an opportunity when their medication orders are seized to tell the government “don’t destroy my safe prescription drug order.” As the agency under HHS tasked with regulating the nation’s drug supply, it’s the FDA that leads the government in this process. FDA’s proposed regulations, which are open for public comment, were drafted and published in early May. While they fail to provide what the law requires – “appropriate due process” – I believe they leave the door open to amend what they have proposed. This weekend I’ll be working to submit PharmacyChecker.com’s public comments to try and assist (persuade?) the FDA to issue a more consumer-friendly final regulation that protects your access to safe and affordable imported medication.
I invoke the spirits of our Founding Fathers to guide us in this fight for independence from the tyranny of high drug prices.
Happy Fourth of July!
Tagged with: Due Process, Regulations, RxRights, Section 708
by Gabriel Levitt, Vice President, PharmacyChecker.com and Sam Werbalowsky, Pharmacychecker.com | Mar 28, 2014 | Personal Drug Importation, Politics
A couple of news articles from the state of Maine have me wondering if more Mainers are going to start importing medication from international online pharmacies. Maine is the only state that has, through the passage of a law, removed state restrictions on personal drug importation from pharmacies in a number of countries.
An article from the Sun Journal highlights a survey designed to track the impact of the Affordable Care Act in Maine (and perhaps these findings will apply to other states, too). Both low and middle-income Maine adults are struggling with medical bills. Surprisingly, 35% of middle-income adults had problems paying bills, compared to 32% of low-income adults. Budget cuts in the state have led to thousands of residents losing Medicaid coverage, so it is likely that the numbers will worsen for low-income adults.
Speaking of budget cuts, Maine Governor Paul LePage did not choose to expand another state program, Mainecare, which helps low-income residents pay healthcare providers. Samantha Edwards, writing for WLBZ, notes that residents who were in these programs are now looking elsewhere for assistance, especially for prescription drugs. The cuts to state programs are forcing municipalities to cover the costs. Rindy Folger, of Bangor Health and Community Services, said, “Since January 1st, we have seen over seventy-five people who we have never seen before who are now coming in looking for help with their medications…Monthly right now we are paying about $9,500 in prescriptions which, over the course of the year, is a significant amount of money for the Bangor taxpayers to have to pay.”
If municipalities like Bangor are going to be picking up the tab for medication, it might be wise for them (or the state) to implement prescription drug importation programs. Portland saved $200,000 a year on health care when it served prescriptions to its employees through PortlandMeds, a prescription drug importation program. It’s very possible – and reasonable – that more municipalities will implement these programs if the Maine’s healthcare cuts continue.
Tagged with: Maine, Obamacare, PortlandMeds
by Gabriel Levitt, President, PharmacyChecker.com and Prescription Justice | Dec 31, 2013 | Advocacy, Online Pharmacies, Personal Drug Importation, Pharmaceutical Industry, Politics
This article summarizes good things and bad that are happening online with drug prices and savings, economics, legislation, politics, and even ethics that relate to access by Americans to more affordable medication offered by safe international online pharmacies. If you’re a consumer – especially an American consumer facing high drug costs – you should read this. When you’re done (or even right now!) we recommend joining RxRights to help play a role in making medication more affordable for all Americans.
Next year, we’re planning to focus more attention on local Americans pharmacies: what they’re doing right, wrong, and in between, and how you can save and take advantage of their in-store opportunities to improve your health! But for now, the international online pharmacy report…
The Good
The money Americans could save on brand name drugs by shopping at safe international online pharmacies continued to increase in 2013. In 2011 , we reported potential savings of 80%, then a mind-boggling 85% in 2012, and now 87.6% in 2013! Savings have proliferated because America’s trading partners, such as Australia, Canada, the states of the European Union, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and Turkey, generally, have kept brand drug prices stable, whereas in America they increased by an estimated 13% last year.
The pricing data referred to above is from our prescription drug price savings research released this past September. In that report we looked at popular prescription drugs that are not always covered by health insurance plans, including new plans offered as a result of Obamacare. An extreme example of savings is on the drug Abilify 10 mg, a medication prescribed for depression; $9,007.08 could be saved annually by purchasing the drug from the lowest-cost online pharmacy verified by PharmacyChecker.com compared with a retail pharmacy in New York City. A more common example of potential annual savings from international pharmacies is the $3,935.28 savings on Spiriva Handihaler 18 mcg. Drug prices are out of control in the U.S., especially for those with no domestic generic alternative, and access to international online pharmacies is as urgent as ever.
It would, of course, be better if Americans could find more reasonable prices on brand name drugs at their local pharmacies.
(more…)
Tagged with: BeSafeRx, CSIP, FDA, ICANN, international online pharmacy, NABP, RxRights
by PharmacyChecker.com | Nov 13, 2013 | Drug Prices, Online Pharmacies, Personal Drug Importation
For 15 weeks, we tracked prices among U.S. and foreign pharmacies on popular drugs manufactured in in the U.S. (including Puerto Rico). Our analysis found that these medications were an average 76% less expensive from the lowest-cost PharmacyChecker.com-approved international pharmacy than a local U.S. pharmacy in New York City. Even when medications were available as generics, such as Singluair and Urocit-K, the prices for the brand name abroad were cheaper than the generic in the U.S.
Just for the record, prescription drugs manufactured under government regulation in many other countries are just as safe as those made here. Critics of international online pharmacies (mostly people connected to drug companies or big chain pharmacy interests) often mention poor foreign manufacturing practices, especially for generic drugs, outside the U.S. to scare Americans from ordering medication internationally. But so many FDA-approved drugs currently sold in U.S. pharmacies are imported – 40% according to the FDA – and many are generics. As our vice president Gabriel Levitt said, “We looked only at brand name medications manufactured in the U.S., not because they’re any safer than those made elsewhere, but because we found it so compelling that the same drugs made here are about 76% less expensive abroad.”
For more information, read our recent press release.
Average Savings Buying from an International Online Pharmacy for Brand Name Medications Manufactured in America*
| Drug |
Local U.S. Pharmacy Price |
Lowest International PharmacyChecker.com Listed Price |
Percent Savings |
| Acuvail 0.45% – 30 vials+ |
$249 |
$65 |
74% |
| Cardura XL 4 mg – 90 pills |
$285 |
$67 |
76% |
| Crestor 40 mg – 90 pills+ |
$680 |
$140 |
79% |
| Cymbalta 60 mg – 90 pills+ |
$879 |
$116 |
87% |
| Invega 6 mg – 90 pills |
$1,932 |
$580 |
70% |
| Janumet 50/500 mg – 180 pills+ |
$1,050 |
$172 |
84% |
| Lotemax 0.5% – 5 ml |
$188 |
$30 |
84% |
| Lumigan 0.03% – 2.5 ml |
$114 |
$22 |
81% |
| Pataday 0.2% – 2.5 ml |
$161 |
$34 |
79% |
| Pulmicort 0.25 mg/2ml – 60 respules |
$698 |
$117 |
83% |
| Restasis 0.05% – 60 Vials |
$394 |
$116 |
71% |
| Singulair Granules 4 mg – 90 pills+ |
$732 |
$176 |
76% |
| Strattera 25 mg – 90 caps+ |
$828 |
$311 |
63% |
| Tarceva 100 mg – 30 pills |
$6,531 |
$1,949 |
70% |
| Urocit-K 10 meq – 90 pills++ |
$146 |
$57 |
61% |
| Average Savings |
|
|
76% |
* Includes manufacturing in Puerto Rico, Local U.S. Pharmacy Prices found at a New York City Rite-Aid
+price calculated from 84 pills.
++price calculated from 100 pills.
Tagged with: American Made Prescriptions Are Cheaper Abroad
by PharmacyChecker.com | Nov 4, 2013 | Advocacy, Drug Prices, Personal Drug Importation
Last week on the Leonard Lopate Show on WNYC public radio, Elisabeth Rosenthal of the New York Times talked about the high cost of medications in America and how Americans genuinely need foreign pharmacies to afford their prescribed medication. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention about five million Americans personally import medication. Many search online to do so and must avoid scams and bad pharmacies. When asked how consumers can know what they are getting online, Ms. Rosenthal said, “That’s the concern FDA has about allowing imports…So you have to be a little careful about where you buy from. There’s something called PharmacyChecker.com, which vets overseas pharmacies, which many people have told me is very useful.”
We’re very pleased that highly respected media outlets and journalists are covering the health crisis caused by drug prices, informing the public of personal drug importation’s role as a lifeline for Americans, and discussing the need for changes to U.S. laws.
Tagged with: Elisabeth Rosenthal, Leonard Lopate, New York Times, WNYC
