Saturday, February 28, 2004

From the Tennesseean:
Canadian drug imports not in TennCare strategy
State Sen. Larry Trail held up a prescription bottle with a cholesterol-reducing drug brought from Canada and shook it.

''I'm looking at this Lipitor, which probably half the audience is taking,'' he said in the Senate Commerce Committee hearing.

A few laughs could be heard around the room.

''You know you are,'' he half-kidded.

From the Mankato (Minn.) Free Press:
Pharmacists pinched from all sides
Pharmacist Mike Lokensgard feels the financial pinch as more people use the Internet to order drugs from Canada. But he understands why they do, and hopes the effort leads to a reform of American drug policy.

“I don’t think it’s right they have to (turn to Canadian pharmacies),” said Lokensgard, who owns Crystal Drug in Lake Crystal. “But it might start something to improve the situation. It is really shaking things up (in the drug industry) already.”

From the Phoenix Business Journal:
Napolitano avoids Canadian drug import, anti-free-trade pushes
Out-of-control prescription drug prices and the exporting of jobs to China and India have increased calls for the importation of cheaper Canadian pharmaceuticals and criticisms of business-backed free trade agreements.

But don't count Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano with many of her Democratic Party cohorts or fellow governors on those two hot-button, election-year issues.

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