by Gabriel Levitt, President, PharmacyChecker.com and Prescription Justice | Nov 4, 2014 | Advocacy, Drug Prices, Politics
No matter how you vote today, or which party you like (if one at all), you may have ended up on this blog because you’re tired of high drug prices or struggling to afford medications you need. PharmacyChecker.com advocates for maximizing consumer-access to the lowest cost, safe and effective medications. We believe that it’s completely unacceptable and unnecessary for tens of millions of Americans to skip filling prescriptions each year because of cost. High drug prices in America are a public health crisis.
Access to affordable medication is a global public health priority and many people view it as a human right. According to the World Health Organization, ten million deaths could be prevented globally by improving access to safe and affordable medication. We strongly believe that much more can and should be done at the global level to help citizens of developing countries obtain life-saving medicines.
Our advocacy focus is – not surprisingly – “online access” to lower-cost medications, which requires an open and free Internet through which consumers can buy medication from safe international online pharmacies. We are a member of the RxRights.org coalition, which focusses on safe personal drug importation through verified international online pharmacies. We strongly encourage you to join them. They have a following of almost 85,000 Americans. Joining is free and for those of you activist-types it could be fun.
There are multinational pharmaceutical corporate forces aligned with willing politicians who accept their campaign contributions to prevent you from obtaining safe lower cost medications from outside the U.S. Pushing back and promoting online access to safe and affordable medication is not a liberal or conservative effort. It’s a big tent, non-partisan issue that draws consumers from all sides of the political fence who are tired of having to pay the world’s highest drug prices.
So, as long as you’re done voting, take this time to check out RxRights and stand up for more affordable medications!
Tagged with: advocate, election day 2014, RxRights
by Gabriel Levitt, President, PharmacyChecker.com and Prescription Justice | Oct 28, 2014 | Internet Censorship
A Letter to the ICANN Community
Today, the Wall Street Journal reported on the subject of rogue online pharmacies and the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). The gist of the article is that ICANN is not doing enough to stop dangerous pharmacy websites. There is reason to believe that ICANN could do more but it could also do too much to the detriment of consumers who cannot afford medication locally. There’s an appropriate middle ground for getting rid of rogue pharmacy sites, but not overreaching and ending online access to safe and affordable medication. Willfully ending such access threatens the public health and treads on global norms relating to human rights and access to medications.
Earlier this month I attended an ICANN conference for the first time, which was in Los Angeles. We’ve written on several occasions about the application by the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy (NABP) to ICANN to operate a new generic top level domain (gTLD) called “.pharmacy”. To remind many of our readers, gTLDs are the endings of websites, such as .com, .org, .gov, .edu, .int, etc. The bottom line here is that we and many others believe that NABP, if its application is successful, will use its new ICANN-conferred legitimacy to stifle competition, mislead the public about online pharmacies, and in doing so curtail access by Americans and consumers worldwide to safe and affordable medication online.
I met many dedicated, interesting and well-informed people at the ICANN conference, including those serving within the ICANN community and others following it closely. To follow up with them I wrote the following letter.
(more…)
Tagged with: human rights, ICANN, NABP, pharmacy, Wall Street Journal
by Gabriel Levitt, President, PharmacyChecker.com and Prescription Justice | Oct 23, 2014 | Counterfeit Drugs, FDA, Rogue Online Pharmacies
When you’re fighting for something you believe in sometimes you lose perspective, and that can lead to overreaction and self-righteous indignation. I’ve been very critical of the FDA because I believe the agency is not doing right by Americans consumers on the issue of online pharmacies and personal drug importation. FDA seems incapable of admitting that there are safe international online pharmacies that help Americans afford medication, and its BeSafeRx program is right out of the big pharma playbook; and…wait, wait, there I go again…
The FDA, specifically its Office of Criminal Investigations, expends a lot of time and energy tracking down people who are intentionally selling fake, expired, or otherwise clearly dangerous pharmaceuticals. Those efforts save lives and ought to instill fear in those perpetrating these acts or those considering doing so. We should and do applaud FDA for those efforts. (more…)
Tagged with: Enforcement, OCI, Office of Criminal Investigations, public health
by Gabriel Levitt, Vice President, PharmacyChecker.com and Sam Werbalowsky, Pharmacychecker.com | Oct 17, 2014 | Health Insurance, Medicare Drug Plans
Since open enrollment began two days ago, Medicare beneficiaries all over the country have been looking for new Medicare Part D plans. In fact, based on our analysis of recent Part D Reviews on MedicareDrugPlans.com, you’d think most enrollees were looking for new plans! Of the past 50 reviews on the site, this is what we found:
- 44% had customer service issues, including unresponsive service, rude representatives, and billing and enrollment errors.
- 42% complained about mail order issues, such as shipments taking too long, poor packaging and instructions, and poor website experiences.
- 30% had problems prescribed drugs not being covered, inaccurate pricing, or coverage refusal after requesting authorization.
While we can’t say much about how to prevent dealing with mail order pharmacy or customer service issues, we know that you have the power to tackle formulary problems. Just so we’re clear, the way to find out which plans cover the drugs you need is at the government’s site, Medicare.gov – not on MedicareDrugPlans.com. MedicareDrugPlans.com serves as a listening board for what you need to look out for when you pick your plan, and is meant to be a supplement to the government’s site, so we recommend using both while selecting a plan. That way, you can make sure your drugs are covered and hopefully avoid any unforeseen issues.
Finally, it’s unfortunate that most of the reviews and ratings of Part D plans are negative ones. We want positive ones! We know that many Americans are benefiting from the plans. To whomever this applies: please help your peers by reviewing and rating the Part D plans that you like.
Good luck searching for the right plan!
Tagged with: Medicare Drug Plans, Medicare Part D, medicaredrugplans.com
by PharmacyChecker.com | Oct 14, 2014 | Advocacy, FDA
If you receive an e-mail or see a web page offering to sell you anything that cures, prevents, or treats Ebola, you can be sure it’s a scam. That’s because there currently aren’t any drugs that prevent or treat Ebola, though there are vaccines and treatments in the works. If you see any companies that sell these falsely marketed products, report them to the FTC or FDA.
For more, check out the FTC blog.
Tagged with: Ebola, FDA, FTC, Online Pharmacy Scams
by Gabriel Levitt, President, PharmacyChecker.com and Prescription Justice | Oct 9, 2014 | FDA, Online Pharmacies, Pharmaceutical Industry
Drug Companies Front and Center at PSM Interchange Conference
Two weeks ago I brought you some highlights of the PhRMA-led Partnership for Safe Medicines (PSM) Interchange propaganda show, which was held on September 18th. Look over to the left. See that picture. Those logos of big pharmaceutical companies make it abundantly clear who is pushing the distorted message of PSM about personal drug importation and online pharmacies.
I’m not joking about the word “propaganda” applied to the PSM event. The online Merriam Webster dictionary provides the following definition for that word: “ideas or statements that are often false or exaggerated and that are spread in order to help a cause, a political leader, a government, etc.” In this case, as I see it, the “cause” of PSM is the commercial agenda of the pharmaceutical and U.S. pharmacy industries cynically couched behind terms of patient safety. A central message of PSM is that Americans are risking their lives buying medication online from other countries and that there is no way to do so safely. Those are false and exaggerated messages that are potentially leading lawmakers and regulators to overreact and scare Americans from a potential lifeline of affordable prescription drugs. Evidence shows that this has been PhRMA’s communications strategy for more than a decade. (more…)
Tagged with: Counterfeit Drugs, daniel burke, FDA, Interchnage, laganga, Mississippi AG hood, OCI, Partnership for Safe Medicines, phrma, PSM
