I just ordered two prescriptions for my wife and I saved $125.00 over what I would have had to pay here in The US and that was even counting my insurance! Morris

Pew white paper and prescription drug safety

posted Thu, 21 Jul 2011

A few months back, the Pew Charitable Trusts hosted a conference that put a spotlight on the safety of the U.S. prescription drug supply, which relies heavily on sourcing active ingredients from developing countries like China and India.

As we mentioned in a previous post, we are in full support of the conference's goal to prevent substandard and counterfeit medications from entering the drug supply.

The final conference paper just came out, and it features findings and recommendations related to making the U.S. prescription drug supply safer.

Our friends at PharmacyChecker.com have a thoughtful post about the Pew white paper that our readers might be interested in.

We were pleased that the Pew paper admits the fact that “many legitimate online pharmacies exist,” but the paper barely touched on the issue of prescription drug affordability. Since exorbitant U.S. drug prices is part of what makes it so attractive to produce and sell counterfeit drugs, we had hoped that this issue would be addressed more fully.

The paper states that “…there is no doubt that by indiscriminately purchasing drugs from online sources, consumers expose themselves to a large safety risk,” but it doesn’t really steer consumers towards safe, legitimate online pharmacies, as was suggested by conference presenter Roger Bate. The National Association of Boards of Pharmacy (NABP) and their Verified Internet Pharmacy Practice Sites (VIPPS) program is referenced, but VIPPS only includes U.S.-based pharmacies (and thus, their recommended pharmacies will not provide consumers with the dramatic savings available to consumers ordering from legitimate Canadian and other international pharmacies).

Since over a million Americans import their needed medicines from international pharmacies, why not give them tips for doing that safely?

 

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