As I wrote
a few weeks back, PharmacyChecker
filed an antitrust lawsuit against five organizations that we believe are largely
funded or backed by pharmaceutical companies. We allege that these
organizations have conspired to illegally suppress competition in the areas of online
pharmacy verification services and drug price comparisons on the Internet. The
organizations are the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy (NABP),
Alliance for Safe Online Pharmacies (ASOP), Partnership for Safe Medicines
(PSM), LegitScript, and the Center for Safe Internet Pharmacies (CSIP).
As part of that suit, we filed a motion for preliminary
injunction to immediately stop the NABP from including PharmacyChecker.com and
this blogsite on its “Not Recommended Sites” list. That list was created to
ostensibly identify rogue online pharmacies but has included safe international
online pharmacies from its very inception. More recently NABP’s oversight has
been expanded, apparently, to also include sites—such as this blog—that help
consumers avoid rogue online pharmacies and find affordable drug prices!
This week was a breakthrough for holding accountable the
pharmaceutical industry for fueling
the opioid crisis, which is responsible for approximately 400,000 deaths
in the U.S. alone. In a landmark ruling, a judge in Oklahoma fined Johnson
& Johnson $572 million for deceptive and aggressive marketing practices of
opioid drugs that contributed to 6,000 deaths in that state. State prosecutors
were successful by charging the drug company under laws relating to “public
nuisances.” To remedy and remove the nuisance, the fine will go toward treatment,
education and prevention programs related to opioid drugs. This resonates
powerfully with me because, for years, I’ve observed how the drug industry abused
the opioid crisis as a lobbying and public relations tool against prescription
drug importation and to crack down against safe international online pharmacies,
and even against
PharmacyChecker. It has done so through its own trade associations and
companies and by funding organizations to do their bidding.
Americans overwhelmingly believe that drug prices are unreasonably high in our country. Millions have looked to the Internet to find lower drug prices at pharmacies in other countries, many because they have no other choice. For over 16 years, PharmacyChecker has provided online pharmacy verification and drug price comparison information to help these people. As I’ve written about for years, the drug companies and U.S. pharmacy corporations don’t like this and take actions to make it stop.
PharmacyChecker has filed a lawsuit against organizations and companies that we allege are illegally conspiring to “to choke off information about personal importation of affordable prescription medications from regulated, reputable pharmacies in Canada and elsewhere overseas.”
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