by PharmacyChecker.com | Mar 6, 2015 | Pharmacychecker Online Pharmacy Report
To see just how drug company lobbyists snake their way into the legislative process please read this next section, which follows the executive summary.
You can view the whole report here.
The GAO inquiry into online pharmacies mandated by FDASIA in its Section 1127 was drafted by a lobbyist in the employ of a government relations firm (FaegreBD Consulting) hired by the Alliance for Safe Online Pharmacies (ASOP), a group that is led by Eli Lilly, the National Association of Chain Drugstores and LegitScript.The executive director of ASOP is Libby Baney, who now runs a consulting firm called FWD Strategies International.1 According to its website, FWD Strategies International “is not just a name; it is what we do – moving your vision forward.” In marketing her firm, Ms. Baney notes that one of its services is drafting congressional legislation. As an example of draft legislation, she notes Section 1127 of FDASIA among others relating to online pharmacy.
As evidenced above, it’s not surprising that Section 1127 did not encourage the GAO to perform serious research and independent analysis about online pharmacy safety. Instead Section 1127 conspicuously calls for GAO to report on “laws, policies, and activities that would educate consumers about how to distinguish pharmacy Internet web sites that comply with Federal and State laws and established industry standards from those pharmacy Internet websites that do not comply with such laws and standards…” That language represents the “vision” of the founders and funders of ASOP, companies and people with a history of working to curtail access by Americans to lower cost medication from safe international online pharmacies.2
1 Libby Baney is identified as a lobbyist for the Alliance for Safe Online Pharmacies in this lobbying disclosure report: http://soprweb.senate.gov/index.cfm?event=getFilingDetails&filingID=6B1B406C-D5C0-48C6-9484-B9FF3B372B1F&filingTypeID=51 [Last accessed 10/21/2014].2 Some of ASOP’s funders seek extreme actions, such as “delisting,” to achieve their goals. Eli Lilly recommends that search engines remove organic results so that Americans can no longer find online pharmacies that are not based in the U.S. See, testimony by Bruce Longbottom, JD, Eli Lilly, Statement to the House Energy and Commerce Committee, Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, February 27th, 2014, see http://docs.house.gov/meetings/IF/IF02/20140227/101804/HHRG-113-IF02-Wstate-LongbottomB-20140227.pdf [Last accessed 10/24/2014]. View the actual testimony about delisting here.
Tagged with: 1127, Alliance for Safe Online Pharmacies, ASOP, Eli Lilly, faegre, FDASIA, FWD Strategies International, GAO, Libby Bainey, lobbyist
by Gabriel Levitt, President, PharmacyChecker.com and Prescription Justice | Aug 22, 2014 | Advocacy, Drug Safety, Internet Censorship, Online Pharmacies, Rogue Online Pharmacies
I’m writing this blog post to say thank you to a domain registrar called EasyDNS and its CEO, Mark Jeftovic, and to talk about what’s up with registrars and online pharmacies, as it could affect your online access to safe and affordable medication. EasyDNS’s new online pharmacy policy denies service to rogue online pharmacies but not safe online pharmacies. It will accomplish this policy by providing service to online pharmacies only if they are approved by LegitScript or PharmacyChecker.
In short, domain registrars are companies that help people obtain website names; names such as www.rxrights.org, www.doctorswithoutborders.org, www.WebMD.com, www.nytimes.com, etc. The most popular of these registrars in America is Go Daddy. If all registrars deny service to a person or a company, such as a rogue online pharmacy, then it cannot reach the public. If all registrars deny service to safe online pharmacies with very low drug prices then the public will not have access to them.
Our friends at RxRights gave a strong shout out to EasyDNS this week as well.
You might be thinking that this is no big deal. Who wouldn’t want to stop rogue pharmacy sites but allow safe, low-cost online pharmacies to operate? Well, earlier this year the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy (NABP) sent letters out to 200 registrars telling them to take down websites that NABP doesn’t recommend. No matter how safe it might be, the NABP does not recommend any international online pharmacy that sells to Americans, instead unfairly calling them rogue sites.
Popular Internet freedom blog Techdirt published an article about NABP called, “Pharmacy Group Lies To Registrars: If We Complain About A Site, It Must Be Taken Down No Questions Asked.” It wrote: “The NABP is basically an organization designed to artificially inflate the price of drugs in the US, cynically using highly questionable claims to pretend that they’re focused on ‘public safety.’”
For the record, there is not a single reported death by a person who ordered from an international online pharmacy, ones that NABP calls “rogue,” that requires a valid prescription and fills orders through licensed pharmacies. The industry has been around for about fifteen years now. (more…)
Tagged with: Alliance for Safe Online Pharmacies, EasyDNS, LegitScript, NABP, Registrars
by PharmacyChecker.com | Sep 10, 2013 | Advocacy, Online Pharmacies
Our vice president, Gabriel Levitt, submitted comments to the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) to emphasize that the Obama administration’s online pharmacy strategy curtails access by Americans to safe online pharmacies in its otherwise important efforts to combat “rogue” online pharmacies. Its Office of the Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator (IPEC) seeks to encourage companies, such as search engines, domain registrars, and credit card companies to prohibit services to dangerous web pharmacies. This may sound good, but all is not what it seems.
IPEC’s efforts led to the creation of the Center for Safe Internet Pharmacies (CSIP), which in our opinion, is essentially a group of very important companies working together to fulfill the wishes of the pharmaceutical industry as they relate to online pharmacies. Founded partly by Google, CSIP is allied with big pharmaceutical and U.S. pharmacy interests, such as Alliance for Safe Online Pharmacies, LegitScript, the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy, and the Partnership for Safe Medicines. All of these organizations are either fully or partially funded by drug companies or U.S. chain pharmacies, or are paid by the FDA, and help discourage safe personal drug importation while cracking down on real rogue sites. We abhor the former but support the latter. They label safe international online pharmacies as “rogue” or “illegitimate” – scaring people away from affordable medication online. We hope our advice to the U.S. government will help prevent further exacerbation of the problem of Americans skipping prescribed medication due to high drug prices in America.
Tagged with: Alliance for Safe Online Pharmacies, CSIP, FDA, Partnership for Safe Medicines
