Will Big Pharma Destroy the Industry It Created?

posted Tue, 5 Oct 2010

Inspired by a generation of 60-somethings and born of necessity, online drug reimportation has become literally a “virtual lifeline” for many. This lifeline is now in grave danger of being destroyed by the very industry that gave birth to its necessity. Recent activities suggest that the $80 million dollar pledge that the U.S. pharmaceutical industry made in support of Obama’s health care reform could result in censorship of the internet.  Patients who rely on non-U.S. drugs should be very scared about the possible actions that will follow the September 29th meeting between the White House and members of the internet infrastructure.

In the mid-nineties, seniors began rebelling over a system that forced them to pay the highest prescription drug prices in the world. They recognized that a prescription drug they could not afford was neither safe nor effective. Seniors started to shop around in order to get on top of these costs and many headed to America’s northern border. They organized bus trips to Canada in search of affordable medicines. Today, that practice has matured into a thriving Internet business. It’s estimated about 1 million U.S. consumers buy their drugs from pharmacies in Canada, and that these purchases now exceed $1 billion a year. These online transactions, for many, have become their lifeline to the medications they could not otherwise afford. This movement began primarily in senior households faced with the economic realities of a fixed income. Now it is spreading to non-senior households dealing with their own new economic realities: median household incomes were down $1,500 last year according to the Census Bureau. For many households that $1,500 represents the difference between someone taking their prescriptions as prescribed or going without. Prescription drug reimportation began as and remains a consumer grassroots solution to the high costs of prescription drugs. In addition, dozens of states, city governments, and private employers have reached across our northern border for lower-cost prescription drugs. Even Congress has recognized that buying drugs from Canada makes sense. In a rebuke to Pharma and its cronies, the U.S. House of Representatives has, over recent years, passed multiple versions of bills that would allow consumers to import legal drugs for personal use from Canada and 24 other countries deemed to have high quality control standards. Each time these bills have failed in the Senate. When it comes to the importation of drugs from foreign countries, many in Congress act like Captain Renault, talking to Rick in “Casablanca.” One can just hear them claiming, “I am shocked, just shocked, to find that drug reimportation is going on here!” while slipping into the Post Office to pick up granny’s imported medication during a leisurely stroll to Rick’s club. Hypocrisy has long been the stock and trade of our body politic. For too long our national politicians have pursued the patronage and done the bidding of the pharmaceutical industry, to the detriment of their citizen constituents, all the while claiming indignation at the high cost of prescription drugs. It’s no secret that the drug industry richly rewarded its political allies in Washington. Four of the nations’ largest pharmaceutical companies rank in the top fifty corporate contributors to congressional members. The White House doesn’t seem immune to this largesse either. The question is; when the White House secured its agreement with the U.S. pharmaceutical industry to spend $80 billion over the next ten years to reduce drug costs for seniors in the “doughnut hole”, and to help pay for the President’s health care reform plan, what did Pharma get? To put it bluntly, is there quid pro quo – something for something? Why bring this up now, you ask? The meeting referenced above on September 29, 2010 brought White House staff together with internet domain registrars and registries for a rather hush-hush meeting on the status of the Internet and its regulation as it relates to prescription drugs. Frankly, speculation is ramped that Pharma and its minion’s will try to secure the demise of all web sites that offer prescription drugs from outside the country. When the “something” on one side is an unfathomable 80 billion dollars, it doesn’t seem implausible that Internet censorship is the “something” on the other side. The losers, of course, will be those who depend on this “virtual lifeline!” Do you rely on drug importation? Does this meddling with freedom of the internet scare you? Drop me a line here at RxRights. Lee Graczyk Interim Executive Mature Voices Minnesota