by PharmacyChecker.com | Mar 13, 2015 | Big Pharma, Pharmacychecker Online Pharmacy Report
Continuing our quest to get the truth out and for our elected leaders in Congress to take bold action to protect online access to safe and affordable medication, we’re publishing a section a week of our report called Online Pharmacies, Personal Drug Importation, and Public Health. The Government Accountability Office Report on Internet pharmacies, which we’ve attested contains inaccuracies and is misleading about buying medication online, clearly relied heavily on pharmaceutical industry sources. Here’s how:
Some pharmaceutical companies, including many members of the PhRMA, view foreign online pharmacies as a commercial threat because Americans are able to obtain medications at lower prices leading to lower profits. The U.S. pharmacy industry views non-U.S. online pharmacies as unfair competition because the latter can charge lower prices. Many of the groups identified by GAO as stakeholders are drug companies and U.S. pharmacies or groups that they fund, including the following groups:
- Alliance for Safe Online Pharmacies
- International AntiCounterfeiting Coalition
- National Association of Boards of Pharmacy Pharmacies
- National Association of Chain Drug Stores
- National Community Pharmacists Association
- Partnership for Safe Medicines
- Pharmaceutical Security Institute
- PhRMA
Of the 35 stakeholder groups identified by GAO, at least 33% (13) are pharmaceutical companies or groups that receive funding by pharmaceutical companies or U.S. pharmacies. Another stakeholder is the Center for Safe Internet Pharmacies (CSIP), as are eight of its member companies. CSIP is a private consortium of businesses formed in response to pressure by the White House Office of the Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator, which mostly operates as another voice and information clearinghouse for the other stakeholders listed. Three associations representing U.S. pharmacy boards and pharmacies are listed above.
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Tagged with: Alliance for Safe Online Pharmacies, Eli Lilly, GAO, NABP, national association of chain drugstores, National Associations of Boards of Pharmacy, phrma
by Gabriel Levitt, President, PharmacyChecker.com and Prescription Justice | Oct 9, 2014 | FDA, Online Pharmacies, Pharmaceutical Industry
Drug Companies Front and Center at PSM Interchange Conference
Two weeks ago I brought you some highlights of the PhRMA-led Partnership for Safe Medicines (PSM) Interchange propaganda show, which was held on September 18th. Look over to the left. See that picture. Those logos of big pharmaceutical companies make it abundantly clear who is pushing the distorted message of PSM about personal drug importation and online pharmacies.
I’m not joking about the word “propaganda” applied to the PSM event. The online Merriam Webster dictionary provides the following definition for that word: “ideas or statements that are often false or exaggerated and that are spread in order to help a cause, a political leader, a government, etc.” In this case, as I see it, the “cause” of PSM is the commercial agenda of the pharmaceutical and U.S. pharmacy industries cynically couched behind terms of patient safety. A central message of PSM is that Americans are risking their lives buying medication online from other countries and that there is no way to do so safely. Those are false and exaggerated messages that are potentially leading lawmakers and regulators to overreact and scare Americans from a potential lifeline of affordable prescription drugs. Evidence shows that this has been PhRMA’s communications strategy for more than a decade. (more…)
Tagged with: Counterfeit Drugs, daniel burke, FDA, Interchnage, laganga, Mississippi AG hood, OCI, Partnership for Safe Medicines, phrma, PSM
by Gabriel Levitt, President, PharmacyChecker.com and Prescription Justice | Sep 26, 2014 | Advocacy, Online Pharmacies, Pharmaceutical Industry
In George Orwell’s famous novel 1984, published in 1949, we find a future in which totalitarian, one-party rule has run amuck on a global scale. It is a world in which whatever “The Party” (think Communist or Nazis) states is a fact must be believed, regardless of the obtuse logic and propagandistic origins of that so called “fact.” The quintessential and frightening example provided by Orwell is the notion that 2+2=5 if The Party Say’s so. When I attended the Partnership for Safe Medicines (PSM) conference last week, it felt as if many people were willing to believe absurd notions about online pharmacies. Most positions espoused at PSM’s conference support the following fallacious statement: IF an online pharmacy is not based in the U.S. and sells prescription drugs to the U.S. THEN it is dangerous. They essentially put on a show in which different people in a myriad of ways communicate that 2+2=5.
The event, called the PSM Interchange, is a Lion’s Den with many people who are directly paid by drug companies, indirectly paid by drug companies, U.S. pharmacies or their trade groups, or those who would like to be paid by the aforementioned entities someday, either directly or indirectly. PSM’s stated mission, “working together to protect the safety of your prescription drugs,” is, it seems, a smoke screen for big drug companies working together to keep drug prices as high as possible in their most cherished market – America. (more…)
Tagged with: CanaRx, Kenneth "mac" McCall, Libby Baney, Maine, Partnership for Safe Medicine, Peter Pitts, phrma, PSM, Todd Brown
