by Gabriel Levitt, President, PharmacyChecker.com and Prescription Justice | Apr 19, 2019 | Drug Safety
According to the FDA, in 2017, 80% of the active pharmaceutical ingredients used to make our medicines are imported. I can’t remember how many times I’ve read (and written) that over the past decade or so. Almost every time I read that particular statistic in the news, it’s often a story about drug quality problems, in which foreign APIs are reported as a growing problem. Flashback to the FDA in 1998: as reported by the U.S. Government Accountability Office, the percent of active pharmaceutical ingredients used to make medicines for sale in the U.S. is about 80%.
In March 2019, Anna Edney, from Bloomberg News, wrote an
article called: “Tainted
Pills Force FDA to Tighten Drug-Safety Regulations.” The main focus of the
article is that there are drug quality problems caused by APIs that are not
meeting the required standards.
(more…)Tagged with: active pharmaceutical ingredients, drug quality, FDA
by Gabriel Levitt, President, PharmacyChecker.com and Prescription Justice | Apr 4, 2019 | Drug Importation
Properly licensed foreign pharmacies help Americans access
medicines that they can’t afford here. Counterfeit drug makers and sellers,
fentanyl and opioid dealers, and dangerous pharmacy websites are worthy targets
of serious regulatory or criminal enforcement actions. There’s no gray there.
An article I wrote that was recently published in The Nation hopefully brings to greater public attention the FDA’s conflation of clearly safe channels for personal prescription imports with counterfeit drugs, the opioid crisis, and rogue online pharmacies. That conflation, one associated with the media relations work of the pharmaceutical industry – is used to justify FDA enforcement actions that exacerbate the crisis of high drug prices by threatening programs that facilitate prescription fulfillment from foreign, licensed pharmacies.
(more…)Tagged with: CanaRx, FDA, fentanyl
by Lucia Mueller, President, PharmacyChecker.com | Apr 11, 2018 | Drug Importation
More than 50 health professionals signed a letter addressed to President Donald Trump, members of Congress and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) asking that we expressly permit personal prescription drug importation. The letter comes along the ever-swelling wave of patient and provider outrage against Congress’ and the president’s failure to act on drug prices, a result of the Big Pharma/U.S. politician relationship, which is only growing cozier.
The letter states:
“Our patients, who have purchased medications through the help of pharmacy storefronts or international online pharmacies verified by PharmacyChecker.com, have received safe and effective medications from legitimate pharmacies in Canada and several other countries. We respect that the FDA is charged with protecting our nation’s medicine supply from counterfeit and otherwise substandard drugs. However, there is no logical reason why the FDA should interfere with the delivery of safe and effective medications to our patients.”
(more…)
Tagged with: doctors, FDA, Florida, healthcare providers, pharmacychecker recommended, prescription justice
