A new U.S. FDA public education campaign called BeSafeRx (www.fda.gov/BeSafeRx) would be much more helpful if it were more truthful. In launching the campaign, designed to alert consumers to the potential dangers of online pharmacies, the FDA Commissioner said, “If the low prices seem too good to be true, they probably are.” In actuality, low prices from online pharmacies outside the U.S. are often quite real and are offered from licensed pharmacies selling genuine products. The problem is that U.S. prices are just unbelievably high. The U.S. pharmaceutical and pharmacy industries (which don’t want to lose profits and consumers to lower priced pharmacies) in other countries, have come out as big supporters of BeSafeRx.
Correctly, the FDA alerts consumers that there are thousands of dangerous pharmacy sites that should be avoided, but safe international pharmacies do exist. Independent studies and over a decade of experience show the high degree of safety Americans can find in personally imported medication from online pharmacies which have been properly credentialed by PharmacyChecker.com. For many Americans they provide the only way to afford their medicine. International online pharmacies verified by PharmacyChecker.com require prescriptions and sell genuine medication at prices much lower than available domestically: often 90% lower.
The big losers of FDA’s online pharmacy campaign are American consumers and taxpayers. American consumers lose by having to pay much higher prices in U.S. pharmacies, or, tragically, by not taking their medication at all. In 2010, 48 million Americans did not fill a prescription due to high drug prices, according the Commonwealth Fund. This is a national health crisis, which is only getting worse. As taxpayers, we lose because when people end up getting sick by not taking needed medication they are more likely to end up in emergency rooms across the county incurring medical costs paid for by our dwindling national coffers (you and me).
Remember, our Secretary of the Health and Human Services Department (which oversees the FDA) – Kathleen Sebelius – operated her own drug importation program as Governor of Kansas. During her tenure, consumers could order prescription medication from pharmacies in the Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, and the UK found through the State of Kansas website. If it was safe then it is safe now. It appears that only the political calculation has changed in perverse deference to the big pharmaceutical companies.
Tod Cooperman, MD, President, and Gabriel Levitt, Vice President
PharmacyChecker.com
The pharmaceutical industry and FDA seem to want us to buy medicine at high prices. They say it’s dangerous to import cheaper medicine, even though it’s been shown to be safe when done through pharmacies approved by PharmacyChecker.com. In fact, recent events show that their supported high drug prices can cause major drug safety problems right here at home.
Forty-eight people in a nationwide Medicaid fraud syndicate were recently arrested for buying prescription drugs from Medicaid recipients and re-selling them. The medications included Zyprexa for Schizophrenia, Atripla and Trivizir for HIV/AIDS, and also asthma medications. As reported in the Wall Street Journal and CNN, the drugs made their way through a black market to a supply chain of “collectors” and “aggregators”, eventually working their way into wholesale companies and pharmacies in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Utah, Nevada, Louisiana, and Alabama. The medications were also sold in bodegas on the street.
Medicaid fraud is not new but the scope of this will cost taxpayers $500,000,000. The scariest thing about this fraud is that the drugs made it into licensed pharmacies throughout the United States. These drugs could have been adulterated, mishandled, or improperly stored – they may no longer be safe.
What lessons should we learn from this? Here are two to consider:
High drug prices helped create this black market, weakening the U.S. drug supply
As a result, American taxpayers bear the burden of higher healthcare costs.
High drug prices helped create this black market, weakening the U.S. drug supply
Medicaid patients sold their drugs because it was highly profitable, despite consequences to their own health. Pharmacies bought from black market wholesalers because their prices were cheaper. End-users bought medicine they needed from bodegas and street corners because it was cheaper than a trip to the pharmacy.
In countries with much lower drug prices there is less incentive for this type of fraud. We’ve made price comparisons among the types of prescription drugs fraudulently sold in the U.S. by looking at U.S. and international pharmacy prices.
Savings On Popular Medications Found in Fraud
Drug
US Bricks-and –Mortar price
Lowest International Price Found on PharmacyChecker.com
All prices collected on 7/19/2012. Bricks-and-Mortar pharmacy located in New York City
American taxpayers bear the burden of higher healthcare costs:
We paid taxes for Medicaid beneficiaries to not take their medicine as prescribed, and to instead sell their medicine. We paid the costs of hospitalization and emergency room visits for these people who went without needed medication and maybe even the end-users, who took potentially adulterated medicine.
It’s also likely that Medicaid was double-billed for the same exact pills: the first time when a Medicaid recipient received it; the second time when it was dispensed again from another pharmacy that received it from black market channels.
Despite problems with our distribution system, the U.S. has one of the world’s safest pharmaceutical supplies. However, the U.S. is not alone in having safe medication – not even close. The pharmaceutical industry and their supported groups fool consumers, elected officials and the media into believing that online pharmacies outside the United States are all dangerous, which, to be polite, is factually inaccurate. Let’s bring some balance to the issue and look at the drug supply problems in our own backyard. The problems here are serious, too, and fraud like this could even be prevented if there were easier access to safe and affordable medication.
Americans are speaking out against the provisions of a new law signed by President Obama on July 9th that will hinder their access to safe and affordable medication. In a news story last week on a Minneapolis-St. Paul NBC affiliate, Kare 11, we learn about Minnesotans who could be negatively affected by Section 708 of Food and Drug Administration Innovation and Safety Act, which allows for the seizure and destruction of personally imported medication.
Rico Anderson imports his prescription medicine for Crohn’s disease from Canada, paying $135 for a one month supply. In the U.S., this medicine would cost over $700 a month. That’s almost $7,000 dollars in annual savings. In contemplating having to face higher U.S. prices, Mr. Rico lamented that: “if it gets to a point where you’re deciding if you have to buy your medicine or pay your mortgage or put food on your table what are you going to do?”
The NBC report features Lee Graczyk, lead organizer of RxRights, a prescription affordability advocacy group. Days before the law passed Mr. Graczyk emphasized both the economic and health costs that result from unaffordable medication: “People are using this option because they cannot afford to buy the medications here. If this law passes, they can’t afford to buy the medications and stop taking the medications, they not only put their health at risk, but as a nation, it’s going to cost us more money.”
Visit RxRights.org to learn how Americans can fight back and protect their access to safe personal prescription drug importation from verified online pharmacies.
To compare prices on prescription medication from Canada and other foreign countries visit PharmacyChecker.com.
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A source for news and analysis about drug prices and safety, online pharmacies and personal drug importation, published on behalf of American consumers.
