by Gabriel Levitt, President, PharmacyChecker.com and Prescription Justice | May 29, 2020 | Health Insurance
Americans without health insurance are four times more likely to buy a prescription drug from another country due to cost. That’s from an analysis by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Health Statistics, published in 2015. Not surprisingly, more comprehensive health insurance generally leads to greater prescription adherence, meaning people properly taking prescription medication. Due to the coronavirus pandemic, and a very uncertain healthcare system response in the U.S., 27 million Americans stand to lose their health insurance, according to a new survey and analysis by the Kaiser Family Foundation. More than I have ever meant it in the history of this blog, safe personal importation of prescription drugs can and should be a lifeline for Americans.
Further to the above, I implore those in government and the pharma-funded organizations who have say over this matter to take the requisite actions to make sure Americans have security in their access to more affordable medicines available online at international pharmacies. Last month, incredibly, the FDA was increasing personal drug import seizures, medicines that Americans had ordered because the prices are too high domestically.
(more…)Tagged with: Texas
by Gabriel Levitt, President, PharmacyChecker.com and Prescription Justice | May 22, 2020 | Drug Importation
PharmacyChecker pays close attention and has performed considerable research related to where drugs are made. Most notably, by researching drug labels and contacting drug companies, we found that 71% of brand name drugs sold in the U.S. are foreign made, a number far higher than the 40% figure regurgitated by the FDA year after year. Americans care a lot about this issue. One of our more popular Ask PharmacyChecker posts is called “How can I determine where a drug is manufactured?” But here’s something different to chew on: Even drugs that our research categorized as manufactured in the U.S. are often not really very “American.” In fact, many are categorized as imported and considered to be foreign-made pharmaceuticals by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP).
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by Gabriel Levitt, President, PharmacyChecker.com and Prescription Justice | May 13, 2020 | Politics and policy
I’m on a roll here, agreeing with drug companies on an issue related to affordable medicines access. Last week, I wrote about Gilead’s messaging about remdesivir, the new Covid-19 treatment permitted via FDA’s emergency use authorization: namely that you can’t buy remdesivir online: if you try, you’ll be scammed. Often drug companies lie or pay others to lie about buying drugs online from other countries, but not in that case. This week, I’m agreeing with the Pharmaceutical Researchers and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) that the Trump administration’s new rule on drug manufacturer co-payment cards is not good for consumers because it will prevent the co-payment from counting toward deductibles, which means higher costs for patients.
If you didn’t know, drug manufacturers blanket medical offices throughout the country with their co-pay cards. These cards are sometimes immensely helpful to patients going to fill a prescription for a brand name drug, particularly when there is no generic substitute. How? Simple: the drug company picks up the tab!
(more…)Tagged with: Gilead Sciences, remdesivir
by Gabriel Levitt, President, PharmacyChecker.com and Prescription Justice | May 8, 2020 | Online Pharmacies
A good portion of this blog takes on Big Pharma for their funding of misleading public information campaigns and programs against drug importation and the practice of safe international online pharmacies. Much of their messaging tries to convey that you can’t find their medications online at lower cost from other countries safely. Because of the work we do, we know for a fact that claim is ridiculous and independent research backs that up entirely. That’s why when I read information on Gilead’s website about remdesivir, which is a promising new treatment for Covid-19, having to do with buying medication online it hit me hard that I totally agreed with them. They wrote that authentic remdesivir is not available online. Sadly, we will see charlatans popping up to offer it over the Internet.
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by Gabriel Levitt, President, PharmacyChecker.com and Prescription Justice | May 1, 2020 | Drug Safety
In late March, drug giant Bayer Pharmaceuticals, out of the goodness of its heart, agreed to donate three million tablets of chloroquine phosphate to help the Trump administration get this drug into U.S. pharmacies. That’s according to an investigative article in Vanity Fair by Katherine Eban, called:
“‘Really Want to Flood NY and NJ’: Internal Documents Reveal Team Trump’s Chloroquine Master Plan”
How inflammatory?! For Trump lovers, that title has the ring of just more biased, liberal media Trump-bashing. For Trump haters, it’s another reason to hate Trump. This post isn’t about our constant partisan divide or even Bayer or other evil drug companies, although they are referenced. It’s also not about unproven treatments for Covid-19 (that was last week). All parties should be interested in the story behind the story: independent drug testing and its potential importance to determine if a drug is safe and effective.
I’m a big fan of testing prescription drugs to see if they have the right stuff (to put it eloquently). Here’s why: lots of pharma-funded groups and some people at the FDA say don’t buy medicine online from foreign countries because it’s allegedly unsafe. Yet, independent testing of about a thousand prescription drug orders has shown that personal drug importation can and is done very safely. Periodic testing of foreign online pharmacy medication orders over the last decade has proven the efficacy of brand name Celebrex, Lipitor, Nexium, Viagra and Zoloft; generic ciprofloxacin and atorvastatin; and, just last month, hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine phosphate.
(more…)Tagged with: Bayer, Donald Trump, Katherine Eban, Roger Bate
by Gabriel Levitt, President, PharmacyChecker.com and Prescription Justice | Apr 23, 2020 | Counterfeit Drugs
Sad as it may be, it should not surprise anyone that hucksters are peddling coronavirus quackery on the Internet related to the treatment of Covid-19. Whether it be through marketing a fake test, medical advice or shoddy personal protective equipment, bad people are trying to profit off this crisis. Recent research shows that rogue websites are selling fake chloroquine phosphate or hydroxychloroquine, taking advantage of the promotion of these antimalarials as possible treatments for the novel coronavirus.
A few weeks back, there were huge spikes in the number of people seeking out these drugs online. We know because of the increased traffic to drug price pages for chloroquine phosphate and hydroxychloroquine on PharmacyChecker.com. Rogue websites market these drugs without requiring a prescription. When it comes to PharmacyChecker-accredited online pharmacies, consumers cannot just self-prescribe; they must provide a valid prescription.
(more…)Tagged with: chloroquine, coronavirus, covid-19, hydroxychloroquine
