Sunday, March 07, 2004

From the Tullahoma (Tenn.) News:
Sen. Cooper is continuing his push for importing drugs from Canada
Sen. Jerry Cooper (D-Morrison) last week continued his push for a pilot program of importing prescription drugs from Canada. Cooper said such a program could result in significant savings for Tennesseans.

"Prescription drug costs are rising at an alarming rate," Cooper said.

"It's not unusual to see double-digit increases in prescription drug prices from year-to-year. What's truly shocking is that Americans pay far more for the same drug as citizens in Canada and other countries around the world.

From Forbes:
Senior lobby AARP to push industry on Canada drugs
AARP, the lobbying powerhouse of 36 million U.S. senior citizens, will "ratchet up" pressure on the pharmaceutical industry to convince them not to block importation of cheaper prescriptions from Canada, the group's chief executive said on Wednesday.

"It's a fact of life -- people go to to Canada, they go to Mexico" because they can't afford steep drug prices here, said William Novelli, chief executive officer at AARP, formerly the American Association of Retired Persons. "This is a national embarrassment that Americans have to go abroad to be able to afford their drugs."

From the Stanford Report:
'The cow is out of the barn' on gap in prescription drug costs
The effort by the FDA and pharmaceutical companies to convince U.S. consumers that there are compelling safety reasons for the differences in price between drugs purchased in the United States and drugs purchased in Canada is like trying to convince a passenger who paid $2,400 for a plane ticket who is sitting next to a passenger who paid $450 that the first passenger got a good deal, he said. The FDA is "trying to convince the American public that they aren't in the same plane as the people sitting next to them -- that the Canadians' plane is more likely to crash or not arrive on time." It hasn't succeeded, he said.

No comments: