Canadian Pharmacy Scandal Reveals the Dangers of Drug Importation
By Sally C. Pipes
A U.S. district court in Montana just imposed a $34 million fine on Canada Drugs, an online pharmacy charged with selling counterfeit medications to unsuspecting Americans. Some of the drugs contained no active ingredients.
Canada Drugs isn't the only online pharmacy that puts patients' lives in serious jeopardy. The National Association of Boards of Pharmacy recently examined more than 11,000 online pharmacies and found that 96 percent were operating illegally.
Many of these sites claim to be Canadian. But they often have no physical presence up north -- just a post office box for an address. They source their medications from the developing world, where counterfeiting is rampant.
Incredibly, many politicians want to make it easier for Americans to buy from these "Canadian" pharmacies. Lawmakers in nine states have recently considered bills that would permit American patients or pharmacies to import huge quantities of drugs from Canada. Congressional Democrats, led by Senator Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., are also pushing hard for importation.
If they succeed, the influx of counterfeit drugs could precipitate a public health catastrophe. Widespread importation would also stifle research and development into legitimate new drugs.
The global drug supply is awash in dangerous products. One in every 10 pills in low- and middle-income countries is counterfeit.
I was born and raised in Canada. It's a beautiful nation. And it's quite wealthy; indeed, Canada is the world's 10th largest economy. So most Americans assume that the nation's drug supply is safe. While that's largely true within Canada's borders, many "Canadian" drugs don't actually come from our northern neighbor. An FDA investigation of illegally imported medications revealed that half of the pills were advertised as Canadian, but 85 percent originated in other countries.
The FDA doesn't have authority to regulate online, foreign pharmacies. And Canadian health officials have explicitly warned they can't vouch for the quality of drugs sold to foreigners through these sites.
In other words, patients risk their lives every time they fill prescriptions through online pharmacies that claim to be based in Canada. The risk is even greater now that counterfeiters are lacing many pills with fentanyl, a synthetic opioid 50 times more powerful than heroin. Last July, law enforcement in Alberta seized 130,000 counterfeit pills that contained fentanyl.
Passing legislation to encourage drug importation would expose more Americans to harmful counterfeits.
Such laws would also discourage pharmaceutical research and development.
Here's why. Pharmaceutical products are cheaper in many nations, including Canada, because those governments tightly control drug prices. Importing the artificially cheap drugs effectively imports the price controls too.
Developing a drug is a long, expensive process. It costs about $2.6 billion to bring a drug to market. Most compounds never make it out of the lab. Less than 12 percent of experimental drugs that enter clinical trials receive FDA approval.
Importation would reduce drug companies' revenue from the relative handful of successful products that do reach pharmacy shelves. Drug developers would consequently scale back on new research.
Hopefully, the recent fine levied against Canada Drugs will serve as a wake-up call to politicians who favor drug importation. Their bills would expose Americans to dangerous counterfeit medications and decimate pharmaceutical research.
Sally C. Pipes is president, CEO, and Thomas W. Smith Fellow in Health Care Policy at the Pacific Research Institute. Her latest book is The False Promise of Single-Payer Health Care (Encounter). Follow her on Twitter @sallypipes.
More Resources
Unable to open RSS Feed $XMLfilename with error HTTP ERROR: 404, exiting
More Medicine Information:
Related Articles
Over The Counter Pain Medication: How To Choose The Right Drugs
With the recent front-page news about the possible hazards of pain medications, you may be taking a look at your over-the-counter (or OTC) pain medications with a wary eye. While all drugs, including those you don't need a prescription for, can be dangerous, some basic knowledge can help you avoid the pitfalls for the pain relief you need.
Hidden ER Costs Undermine Health Markets
Imagine you're traveling in a different state when, suddenly, you begin to feel severe abdominal pain. Being unfamiliar with the area and wanting to avoid hefty out-of-network bills, you call your insurance company to find an in-network hospital.
Benign Tumors Of The Cervix
Endocervical polypsEndocervical polyps are the most common benign neoplasms of the cervix. Please note that the word neoplasm refers to a cancerous growth.
Top Five FAQs About Nail Fungus
What is nail fungus?Nail fungus, also known as Onychomycosis, is an organism which digests the keratin found in your fingernails and toenails. The fingernail and toenail are naturally built to be strong barriers, and resistant to fungi and other infections.
Medical Tourism Opportunities in India
More and more people have started travelling to India for Medical Treatment and during the past year alone, over 150000 people travelled to India for their medical requirements. Medical Tourism is finally coming of age.
The Truth about C Reactive Protein and Cholesterol Lowering Drugs
You might disagree, but hear me out on this..
A Compelling Look at Pain Relief
If your back aches when you're loading groceries in the car or your hands cramp up with arthritis when you sit down at the computer, you're not alone. Although the nature, cause, and complaints vary, over one-half of Americans experience chronic or recurrent pain, a recent survey conducted by the Stanford University Medical Center found.
Toenail Fungus: Treatment and Prevention
A thick, yellowish nail with splotchy white areas is a classic presentation for a fungal toenail. In the early stages the toenail is only slightly discolored, or slightly thickened.
Traditional Treatments for Back Pain... Which Ones Work and Which Ones Don't?
When Dorothy followed the yellow brick road, she was told to do so by those who wanted her to get where she wanted go. Well as humans when we blindly follow recommendations even by individuals who have good intentions, it may not always be your best option.
Bee Propolis: Synergisitc Health Care for the 21st Centruy
For well over a century modern science has progressed at a startling rate. With this increase in knowledge has come medicinal and healthcare benefits that have seen ages peak and diseases eradicated.
Mind Altering
"It's a chemical imbalance." I've heard those words so many times in the last decade, it's becoming routine for Doctors to blame everything on it.
Kids and Medication Part I
We have all talked a lot about the problems in our educational system, about latchkey kids, about teacher turnover (50 percent of teachers quitted within the first five years on the job), psychologists over prescribing medications such as Prozac and Ritalin with our friends and families. We can all foresee a terrible problem in the future because we are feeding these drugs to kids under the age of six, their brains have not been fully formed yet and these drugs and their predecessors and competing drugs all have adverse side effects.
Serevent Side Effects Put Serevent in Top 5 Most Dangerous Drugs
Serevent is an asthma inhalation medication, a bronchodilator, that relaxes the muscles in airways. It is preventative and not effective when taken during an asthma attack.
The Power of Ice
Using ice to treat injuries is one of the oldest methods of pain control. Proven to be safe and effective at reducing swelling, relieving pain and decreasing muscle spasms, ice therapy is an easy self-care technique that anyone can administer.
What Not to Tell Your Doctor?
For many years since medicine has been established as anethical profession and gained widespread credence peoplehave believed that they could and should tell their doctoreverything even remotely pertinent to their health and thatit was held in the strictest confidence. Furthermore, howcan the physician make accurate judgments when important orsignificant information is missing? This system worked verywell until relatively recently but there now exists a breachof this confidence that people should know about and thisbreach has developed from the advent of third partyinvestigations into people's backgrounds.
Bextra and Vioxx Withdrawal Spawn Advertising Pause from Bristol Myers
Pharmaceutical giant Bristol Myers Squibb has announced that they will suspend direct-to-consumer advertising for their prescription drug products for a year. This comes in the wake of the well-publicized withdrawals of Merck's Vioxx and Pfizer's Bextra, two non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) that were voluntarily withdrawn from the market recently.
Protopic Cancer Risk Lawyer
The FDA issued a warning in July of 2005 on two skin creams, Elidel (pimecrolimus) and Protopic (tacrolimus) to all ages. Recent animal studies have found that Protopic causes lymphomas and skin cancers in an unknown percentage of users.
Melatonin, Sleep Enhancement, and ADHD
OverviewMelatonin is a natural hormone, which is produced and secreted by the pineal gland. Melatonin plays an important role in the regulation of many hormones in the body.
Bulk Forming Drugstore Laxatives
There are five basic types of drugstore laxatives you should be aware of. Some of these laxatives can be dangerous to use.
Sinusitis: Sinus Infection Deals a Corporate KO
Sinusitis and Sinus Infection Starts with a Little SniffleYes, I hear it too. A simple sniffle in a distant cubical.
Cetyl Myristoleate for Arthrtis: Science or Speculation
There are a lot of fabulous stories about Cetyl Myristoleate (also known as CMO or CM) floating across the Internet. Mine is one of them.