May 17, 2010
The Wall Street Journal
The AARP says that manufacturer prices for brand-name prescription drugs commonly used by people on Medicare rose 9.7% for the year ending in March — the biggest annual jump since the group started tracking prices in 2002. The price of specialty drugs like biologics and injectables rose 9.2%. Generic drug prices, meantime, dropped 9.7%. (All this happened while general inflation hovered around 0.3%.) Read more
May 16, 2010
Tulsa World
For about 15 years, she has been buying prescription medications for herself and her husband by mail order from Canada. "For the savings," Miller says. Read more
May 11, 2010
OneWorld.net
We, the undersigned organizations are very concerned about the nature and extent of WHO’s involvement in issues pertaining to counterfeit medical products. We recognize that work must be undertaken under WHO’s leadership to ensure availability of quality, safe and efficacious pharmaceuticals but we fear that WHO’s involvement in the issue of “Counterfeits” will have adverse consequences for access to affordable medicines while failing to address the very real problem of proliferation of pharmaceuticals with compromised quality, safety and efficacy.The term “Counterfeit” is defined by the WTO-TRIPS Agreement as referring to a specific category of trademark violation1 and in some legislation to all other intellectual property (IP) violations as well. Read more
May 11, 2010
OneWorld.net
We, the undersigned organizations are very concerned about the nature and extent of WHO’s involvement in issues pertaining to counterfeit medical products. We recognize that work must be undertaken under WHO’s leadership to ensure availability of quality, safe and efficacious pharmaceuticals but we fear that WHO’s involvement in the issue of “Counterfeits” will have adverse consequences for access to affordable medicines while failing to address the very real problem of proliferation of pharmaceuticals with compromised quality, safety and efficacy.The term “Counterfeit” is defined by the WTO-TRIPS Agreement as referring to a specific category of trademark violation1 and in some legislation to all other intellectual property (IP) violations as well. Read more
May 12, 2010
NaturalNews.com
(NaturalNews) The President and CEO of Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA), Billy Tauzin, recently announced that he will be resigning from the organization on June 30, 2010. The organization, which represents top drug companies like Pfizer and Merck, has been one of the primary backers of the Democrats' health care reform legislation, making Tauzin's resignation a significant setback. Read more
On February 9, 2010, in "Drug Prices, Personal Drug Importation" by Tod Cooperman, MD, President, PharmacyChecker.com, and Gabriel Levitt, Vice President, PharmacyChecker.com
Fronting for the pharmaceutical industry, The Partnership for Safe Medicines, which has a website at www.SafeMedicines.org, is an avowed foe of personal drug importation. A popular tactic of this group is mixing legitimate concerns over drug counterfeiting with unwarranted warnings about the safety of buying drugs from pharmacies in Canada and other countries. Here’s what we know about The Partnership, starting with who runs it. Read more
May 2, 2010
Orlando Sentinel
It's illegal, but desperate Americans are buying drugs online from Canada Read more
May 2, 2010
Orlando Sentinel
Consumer tips
The Food and Drug Administration provides a number of consumer safety tips for buying medicines over the Internet on its Web site, http://www.fda.gov. Look under the "drugs" tab and then "consumer resources." Read more
April 7, 2010
Huffington Post
WASHINGTON — Chalk one up for the pharmaceutical lobby. The U.S. drug industry fended off price curbs and other hefty restrictions in President Barack Obama's health care law even as it prepares for plenty of new business when an estimated 32 million uninsured Americans gain health coverage. Read more
March 31, 2010
Firedoglake.com
Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer has always been right at the forefront of the drug re-importation debate. In previous runs for Governor he highlighted the issue by actually busing senior citizens into Canada to purchase cheaper pills. A few weeks ago, Schweitzer sent a letter to the HHS Secretary, Kathleen Sebelius, calling for a waiver to allow Montanans on Medicaid and CHIP to get imported prescription drugs from Canada. Read more