What is the main problem? High cost of prescription drugs.

   Factors contributing to high costs:

·         Research and development past and future, as well as current drug.

·         FDA approval, including animal and clinical testing.

·         Patent protection, typically for 18 years, sometimes extended.

·         Profit generation to boost stock prices and benefit shareholders.

·         Product liability.

What are the alternatives?

·         Generic “equivalents.”

·         Crossing borders e.g. going to Mexican or Canadian pharmacies.

·         Buying on the Internet e.g. from Canadian sources.

What are the dangers?

·         “Equivalent” is not necessarily identical. Differences in compounding, absorption and flat out “sugar pill” fraud. How does one show the effectiveness of a given drug in an individual patient? Placebo is usually “effective” about 50% of the time.

·         Contamination … where was the medicine compounded and was there credible oversight and quality control. (No Mexican regulation of pharma.)

·         Deterioration …is the drug out of date? Was it refrigerated/handled properly?

·         Costs of shipping and handling.

·         To whom do you return obviously erroneous meds?

·         Is there a pharmacist from whom one can get info/instructions?

·         Exposure of your computer and personal info to crooks.

·         Are you breaking the law?

Is Canada to be our “white knight?”

• American government has not approved reimportation of drugs from Canada.
• American pharmaceutical companies have begun to limit sales of drugs to Canada.
• Canadian Health minister says the arrangements made to supply 30mil Canadians cannot supply the USA’s 280 mil population.

Canadian Health Minister says the practice of Canadian physicians countersigning American doctors prescriptions is “immoral and unethical and cannot continue indefinitely.”

What are the safeguards?

• American FDA
• Canadian Govt. regulation of approved Canadian pharmacies supplying Canadian citizens. Canadian Health Minister says Internet sales are “difficult to regulate.”
• Radio Frequency Identification Devices (RFID) used now on wholesale shipments in the USA.
• National Assoc. of Boards of Pharmacy (nabp.net).
• Verified Internet Pharmacy Practice Sites (nabp.net/vipps).

   Bottom line: if you intend to buy drugs on the Internet your best bet is a VIPPS certified pharmacy.