by Gabriel Levitt, President, PharmacyChecker.com and Prescription Justice | Feb 3, 2012 | Drug Prices, Personal Drug Importation, Saving Money on Prescription Drugs
According to ABC News, “Santorum told a large Tea Party crowd here that he sympathized with the boy’s case, but he also believed in the marketplace,” and that companies wouldn’t be making the life-saving drugs if they didn’t believe they would turn a profit doing so. The former senator from Pennsylvania seemed to be lecturing the American people when he said: “People have no problem paying $900 for an iPad…but paying $900 for a drug they have a problem with — it keeps you alive. Why? Because you’ve been conditioned to think health care is something you can get without having to pay for it.” (more…)
Tagged with: ABC News, Abilify, brand name drugs, free market, generic drugs, high drug costs, iPad, life-saving drugs, medicaid, Medicare, Pennsylvania, pharmacy, prescription medication, Rick Santorum, schizophrenia, Tea Party, United States, Veteran's benefits
by PharmacyChecker.com | Jan 26, 2012 | Drug Prices
Americans who cannot, or struggle to, afford their medications scored a victory last week when the bills known as SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) and PIPA (Protect Intellectual Property Act) were postponed indefinitely. The bills contained language that imperiled access to safe non-U.S. online pharmacies, including PharmacyChecker-approved websites. We addressed the main issues and growing opposition to this legislation last week.
We want to applaud the work of RxRights.org, which played a pivotal role in rallying Americans against SOPA and PIPA and in organizing the industry’s efforts to join the great Internet blackout of January 18th.
RxRights.com writes:
Your letters, emails, phone calls and visits to your Congresspeople made a difference. Last Wednesday, MILLIONS joined you in speaking out to express opposition to the bills during the big Internet blackout. In response to your powerful actions, the House and the Senate have put the bills on hold. Congratulations on a job well done and thank you for standing up for affordable medicine! (more…)
by Gabriel Levitt, President, PharmacyChecker.com and Prescription Justice | Jan 18, 2012 | Advocacy, Online Pharmacies, Personal Drug Importation
Americans, who struggle with the high cost of prescription medication and buy prescription drugs from safe non-U.S. online pharmacies, should include their voice in the swelling opposition to the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) before Congress.
SOPA and its counterpart legislation in the Senate, the Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA), target reputable international online pharmacies, including those approved by PharmacyChecker.com, and seek to block access by Americans to safe and affordable prescription medication. These bills, if made into law, could be used to designate legitimate foreign online pharmacies as “dangers to the public health” and subject them to being blocked from the Internet as well as from appearing in search results and accepting credit card payments.
Access to medication is just one part of the legislation, which also focuses on protecting copyrights. There is good reason to clamp down on online pirates and counterfeiters. However, as currently proposed, SOPA tramples on the U.S. Constitution, encourages censorship, stifles innovation, and even subverts our foreign policy efforts to encourage other governments to allow their citizens uncensored Internet access! For a fuller understanding of the access to affordable medicines issues at stake, please read: “SOPA will have grave effects on the health of hundreds of thousands of Americans”.
If you go to PharmacyChecker.com today, you’ll find that we’ve joined the huge opposition to SOPA by encouraging Americans to take action against this damaging legislation. You can protest SOPA now by contacting your elected officials from RxRight.org.
Tagged with: PIPA, Protect Intellectual Property Act, RxRights, SOPA, Stop Online Piracy Act
by PharmacyChecker.com | Jan 17, 2012 | Advocacy
Buyer beware! Or, more accurately, buyer, don’t buy when you receive an unsolicited phone call from someone trying to sell you medication! Recently, a consumer reported her experience with a costly online pharmacy scam to PharmacyChecker.com.
The site visitor, who received a phone call from a website she identified as RX-Refill (or, RXREFILL) wrote: “I was given a pretty good price; told to pay through Western Union; and make the payment out to a Steve G. Polero in Manila, Philippines 1001.”
She continues… “Gads, I should have known. I have since phoned Western Union and all they told me was that someone from Makati (just outside of Manila) picked up the money on December 10, 2012.” Unsurprisingly, this visitor still has not received her prescription refill! And if she had received her order, we would caution her that the drugs could very well be fake.
While in retrospect many of the signs point to don’t buy – what this consumer did is a common mistake. The website she used did not have a physical address posted; it’s phone number was connected to a location in the U.S. but the Western Union mailing address was in the Philippines. Also, the site that the scam phone caller claimed to be calling from did not have the PharmacyChecker.com Verification Seal or VIPPS certification: a red light.
There are many safe online pharmacy options, domestic and foreign – shop wisely by looking for trustworthy seals. Make sure to validate the seals by clicking on them to know that they are authentic, which means hosted by the organization issuing the seal.
Tagged with: alert, online pharmacy telephone scam, PharmacyChecker.com Verification Seal, Philippines, rx-refill, rxrefill, seal, VIPPS certification, Western Union
by PharmacyChecker.com | Jan 11, 2012 | Advocacy, Online Pharmacies
Today we’d like to feature content from our ally RxRights.org, a non-profit group dedicated to protecting access to safe and affordable personal drug importation through verified online pharmacies:
Lee Graczyk, RxRights lead organizer, felt compelled to respond to a recent Washington Post editorial about the problem of Internet piracy and the legislation that has been crafted to address it. Though we have not had much luck getting the Post to publish Lee’s responses in the past, he
continues to try, and wanted to share his latest effort.
The Post editorial board was on target in stating that the Stop Online Piracy Act’s (SOPA) definition of a rogue site is dangerously overbroad and could threaten legitimate Web sites [“A fair block on Internet piracy” editorial, Jan. 3.] Its explanation, however, could go further to discuss the implications SOPA would have on Americans who import their medications from legitimate pharmacies.
Hundreds of thousands of Americans–90,000 people in Florida alone–rely on ordering vital prescription medications from safe, licensed Canadian and other international pharmacies, mostly due to the exorbitant costs of prescription drugs in the U.S. If passed, SOPA would take away Americans’ access to these pharmacies. This is because the bill inappropriately groups together real pharmacies–licensed, legitimate pharmacies that require a doctor’s prescription and sell brand-name medications–and the rogues that sell everything from diluted or counterfeit medicine to narcotics without a prescription.
As legislators continue to move forward with SOPA, as well as its Senate counterpart, the PROTECT IP Act, they should recognize this is not only an Internet infrastructure and security matter, but also a grave health concern.
This article can also be found on RxRights.org. PharmacyChecker.com is an RxRights coalition member.
Tagged with: Canada, Internet, PROTECT IP Act, rogue pharmacies, Rx Rights coalition, RxRights, SOPA, Stop Online Pri, United States, Washington Post
by PharmacyChecker.com | Jan 10, 2012 | Advocacy
While PharmacyChecker.com’s main focus is on safe and affordable prescription medication, we are aware that many of our website visitors also take over-the-counter (OTC) products. It’s important to bring to their attention safety issues with OTC products, as we have done in the past. We want to point out that some popular OTC medicines in the United States are being recalled due to potentially serious manufacturing flaws, as reported by the FDA and featured on MSNBC.com.
OTC meds manufactured at Novartis Consumer Health Inc. in its Lincoln, Nebraska plant may have been mixed with dangerous painkiller medication, such as Percocet, Endocet, Opana and Zydone. While the mixture dose is said to be minimal, Novartis Health is voluntarily recalling some select bottle sizes of Excedrin, No Doz, Bufferin and Gas-x Prevention since there may be some stray tablets or capsules and/or could contain broken or chipped tablets.
If you have these medications, be sure to check the manufactured date and location properly, and take a look inside the bottle itself too, before taking them. The medicine may need to be discarded or returned to the manufacturer for a refund. See below for details from the manufacturer.
Note from Novartis-OTC.com: Novartis Consumer Health (NCH) is voluntarily recalling all lots of select bottle sizes of Excedrin® and NoDoz® products with expiry dates of December 20, 2014 or earlier as well as Bufferin® and Gas-X® Prevention® products with expiry dates of December 20, 2013 or earlier, in the United States.
Tagged with: Bufferin, Endocet, Excederin, FDA, Gas-x Prevention, MSNBC.com, No Doz, Novartis Consumer Health, Opana, OTC, Percocet, prescriptions, recall, Zydone
