Most of our drugs were 'invented' here in this country, but I can't understand how they can be manufactured in other countries 'cheaper' than in this country. The drug manufacturers are profiting. I don't think the drug makers in this country should be allowed to 'hold us up! � A.W.
From the editor, Mary Johnson:
Many of the drugs that can be purchased for so much less in Canada and other nations are not manufactured in those countries at all. Some are made right here in the United States. U.S. drug consumers, however, often must pay up to two or three times what prescription drug consumers in Canada and other countries pay. That�s because in most other industrialized nations the government negotiates drug prices as part of the national health care system.
Importation of prescription drugs from Canada is still technically illegal. Currently, under federal law, only drug companies can legally import drugs. Although our government so far has not prosecuted individual customers, or the increasing number of cities and states that are making it easier for their citizens to import prescription drugs, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has fought importation, citing safety reasons.
�That�s a lot of hooey,� says Dr. Marcia Angell, who was executive editor of The New England Journal of Medicine for 11 years and is currently writing a book on the secrets of the drug industry. �There is no reason that buying drugs in Canada is any less safe than buying them in the United States,� Angell says. �Pfizer, for example, has 60 manufacturing sites in 32 countries. The drugs are made all over the world. They�re sold all over the world,� she adds.
According to Congressman Gil Gutknecht, whose drug �reimportation� legislation is supported by TSCL, Pfizer�s cholesterol-lowering drug Lipitor is made in Ireland.
U.S. consumers and taxpayers have every right to question the amount they pay for drugs. Not only do pharmaceutical manufacturers get large tax write-offs for the money they spend on research and development, taxpayers also foot the bill for a significant portion.
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) often does the early, riskiest research on many drugs and then turns them over to companies to develop for the market. Despite royalty laws intended to recover a portion of the taxpayer�s research investment, concerns have been raised that the government is not getting its fair return. According to the General Accounting Office (GAO), nothing under current law restricts the amount of royalties NIH can negotiate. An example is the best-selling cancer drug Taxol. The GAO found that the U.S. government spent hundreds of millions of dollars helping to develop Taxol, but only got back $35 million. Medicare, however, paid $687 million for Taxol over five years.
TSCL maintains that any prescription that goes unfilled because the patient can�t afford it is an unsafe drug, and TSCL continues to support legislation that would allow consumers to purchase less costly drugs from Canada and other nations.
Sources: �Prescriptions and Profits,� Morley Safer, CBS 60 Minutes, March 14, 2004. �NIH-Private Sector Partnership in the Development of Taxol,� The General Accounting Office, June 2003, GAO-03-829.
July 2004
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