Update – Drug Reimportation: Another topic the candidates agree on…

Posted by Bill Pierce

On April 15th I posted some thoughts on the issue of drug reimportation and the fact that all three candidates agree we should allow some level of reimportation as a means to help lower people’s drug costs.  As part of that post I asked some basic questions that I thought needed to be answered including these two:

1. If we allow this, how will the FDA police such imports?
   History and experience shows us that we can’t trust a Web site just because it says it’s a legitimate Canadian Web site. So how will the FDA certify Web sites as being legitimate under such a law? And how will they continue to monitor such Web sites given all their other responsibilities – a list that keeps growing. Or will we simply let the buyer beware?
2. How will we guarantee that people who are buying drugs from legitimate Web sites have a legal prescription for the drug(s) and that they are who they say they are?
   In the U.S. you can’t legally gain access to prescriptions without a script from a physician in good standing as regulated by the state in which they practice. Will we require people to get the prescription from a U.S. doctor, mail it to the Web site and then in turn require them to verify that the doctor signing the script is a physician in good standing and that they did in fact write the script for the person? Without some kind of verification system we risk creating big loopholes for counterfeiting, illegal prescribing and the illegal practice of medicine.

A recent CNN investigative piece examined this issue and asked these same questions.  As a result of its investigation, CNN articulated well the challenges of reimportation.  Here’s just a piece of what they found out: 

“A CNN investigation shows just how easy it is to purchase prescription drugs online without a legitimate prescription, revealing a growing new battle in the war on drug abuse. To prove it, a CNN investigative reporter went to linepharmacy.com, which advertises a long list of prescription drugs for sale. The site sent back an e-mail saying ‘all orders made are still subjected to Doctor’s evaluation.’

The reporter placed two orders for anti-depressants with the site: one for Prozac, the other for Elavil. A health survey on the site was already filled in. The reporter submitted a credit card and a shipping address.

Within 24 hours, the Prozac had arrived at the reporter’s front door. The Elavil arrived two days later. Both prescription bottles had a doctor’s name and pharmacy on the label.

The reporter had neither seen a doctor nor talked to a doctor on the phone. In fact, he hadn’t even heard of the doctor listed on the bottle.”

The bottom line, unless we are able to guarantee safety, we will put U.S. citizens at risk.

And by the way, the lead of the CNN story chronicled how a man died after having purchased drugs on an internet pharmacy site.  He was hurt in a car accident, had back pain, ordered pain medication from an online pharmacy, became addicted and died of an overdose.  All without a doctor’s prescription.  His wife thought it was all legitimate, and now she’s without a husband.

A full look at the article is available on CNN’s Web site.