CanaRx president says Canadian drugs shortage unlikely

From the Windsor (Ont.) Star:
Fears of a prescription drug shortage in Canada are rising now that it's all but certain the next U.S. president will allow Americans to import cheaper Canadian drugs.

But a Windsorite whose company sells prescription drugs to Americans, and inspired a Simpsons episode for it, says the fears are all hype.

"Making it easier to import international medications would not have a significant impact to Canada at all, or its supply," said Tony Howard, president of CanaRx. "What the three candidates are doing will not jeopardize Canada's supply at all."

It's illegal in the U.S. for Americans to import prescription drugs from other countries, and President George Bush has opposed changing that.

But all three major U.S. presidential candidates -- Democratic rivals Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton and Republican John McCain -- have said they'd allow it. ...more

Bush urges new rules on online sales of addictive prescription drugs

From the Los Angeles Times:
President Bush called on Congress on Saturday to pass legislation restricting online sales of powerfully addictive prescription drugs, citing a growing number of overdoses.

Bush referred to San Diego teenager Ryan Haight as he unveiled the 2008 national drug control strategy in his weekly radio address. Haight overdosed on painkillers he bought over the Internet, prompting Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) to introduce the bill that Bush championed Saturday.

The president said his national drug policy had reduced youth drug consumption by 24% since 2001. That progress has been counterbalanced by the growing problem of prescription drug abuse.

"Unfortunately, many young Americans do not understand how dangerous abusing medication can be," Bush said. "In recent years, the number of Americans who have died from prescription drug overdoses has increased." ...more

Free Trade Zones Ease Passage of Counterfeit Drugs

From the New York Times:
Along a seemingly endless row of identical gray warehouses, a lone guard stands watch over a shuttered storage area with a peeling green and yellow sign: Euro Gulf Trading.

Three months ago, when the authorities announced that they had seized a large cache of counterfeit drugs from Euro Gulf’s warehouse deep inside a sprawling free trade zone here, they gave no hint of the raid’s global significance.

But an examination of the case reveals its link to a complex supply chain of fake drugs that ran from China through Hong Kong, the United Arab Emirates, Britain and the Bahamas, ultimately leading to an Internet pharmacy whose American customers believed they were buying medicine from Canada, according to interviews with regulators and drug company investigators in six countries.

The seizure highlights how counterfeit drugs move in a global economy, and why they are so difficult to trace. And it underscores the role played by free trade zones — areas specially designated by a growing number of countries to encourage trade, where tariffs are waived and there is minimal regulatory oversight. ...more

No prescription, no problem

From the Globe and Mail:
Ever wonder what would happen if you actually opened that e-mail titled "Vi@GRa, LeVitr@ with the LOWEST prices!" and ordered up some pills?

Researchers at the University of Toronto-based Centre for Global eHealth Innovation recently took on the task, sifting through more than 4,000 spam e-mails and placing 27 orders in an attempt to gauge how easy it is for Canadians to buy prescription drugs online.

The study leaders, Alejandro Jadad and Peter Gernburd, received one product for every three orders they placed.

"We were very surprised to find you could get so much from these spammers. Canadians have to be wary of this," Dr. Jadad said.

The study was published yesterday in the online journal PLoS Medicine. ...more

Pharmacist inks Internet drug deal

From the Vancouver Province:
A Surrey pharmacist has signed an exclusive deal with the Philippines government to sell prescription drugs in that nation on the Net.

Bob Rai is president of Pharma-Canada Inc., which he said signed the five-year deal in March and hopes to be operating early in August. "The federal government of the Philippines wants to reduce medication costs by about 50 per cent by the year 2010," Rai said yesterday.

He has business contacts in the Philippines after travelling there regularly for several years to facilitate his dealings in herbal medications and generic drugs. To reduce costs, government-run pharmacies have been set up to offer an alternative to the more expensive, private pharmacies. ...more

Canadian drug imports shrink in half from 2004

From the Detroit News:
The once-booming business of selling Canadian prescription drugs to Americans has shrunk in half since 2004-05 as the surging Canadian dollar and better U.S. government health insurance erode the price gap.

Annual sales have slipped below $500 million Canadian, down from nearly $1 billion Canadian in 2004, according to figures supplied by the Canadian International Pharmacy Association, which represents Internet and mail-order drugstores.

The figures include sales of drugs to Americans from third countries, mainly in Europe, but brokered by Canadian pharmacies. ...more

Reliability of drugs from Canada questioned

From the Trenton (NJ) Times:

Fred Billingham was waiting to shoot pool at the Hamilton Senior Center. Former U.S. Rep. Jim Greenwood was hundreds of miles away in Washington, D.C., but they were of like minds on one topic: Purchasing cheap medication from Canada scares them.

"I wouldn't trust them," said the 78-year-old retiree, "because you don't know what you're getting."

And Greenwood, a former Bucks County, Pa., legislator who now is president of the trade association the Biotechnology Industry Organization, said, "There is a very legitimate safety issue that has to be taken into consideration."

That safety concern is why state investigators make no apologies for the tactic they used last week to shut down a local company that helped American patients buy lower-cost medications from Canada. ...more

Senator Fights For Canadian Drug Access

From Newschannel5.com (Tenn.):
Lawmakers battled over prescription drugs on Capitol Hill Tuesday. One state lawmaker was fighting to give seniors a major price break, but drug companies countered with strong opposition.

State lawmakers examined a new way for Tennesseans to legally buy drugs from other countries, mainly Canada. The savings are amazing.

Senator Doug Jackson wants Tennesseans to be able to legally buy discount drugs from other countries, via the I-SAVE RX program. ...more

Company offering cheap prescription drugs faces probe

From the Vancouver Sun:
The College of Pharmacists of B.C. says it has launched an investigation into a Richmond company offering cheap prescription drugs online without being registered with the college.

The investigation will probe regulatory matters. There is no evidence that the Richmond company is in any way linked to the death of a Quadra Island woman who died after ingesting drugs she ordered online.

Under the college's guidelines, a B.C. pharmacy that sells drugs online must publish its name and address on its website -- along with the college's phone number, which people can call to verify the site is legitimate. ...more

MD: Online medical treatment 'frightening'

There are a few more details about the Marcia Bergeron in this article. Most notably, the names of the drugs she bought online were mentioned: alprazolam (brand name Xanax) and zolpidem (brand name Ambien in the U.S)

From the Vancouver Sun:
The Quadra Island woman who died after taking tainted pills she bought on the Internet became very sick in the weeks leading up to her death but never mentioned ordering drugs online, her best friend said yesterday.

"She complained that she felt like she had flu symptoms and diarrhea," said Glenda Billerbeck, who visited Marcia Bergeron at her home in the days before her death. "She said, 'My legs are kind of swollen up,' and she was tired."

Billerbeck said Bergeron, 57, suffered from several health problems, including a bad hip and severe allergies.

But she said her friend, whom she knew for more than 15 years, never mentioned ordering medicine online. ...more

Online drugs can prove deadly: coroner

This death is a sad example of "buyer beware." I'd like to think that it might dissuade a few people to buy pharmaceuticals online from questionable websites, but the fact is a lot of people want to circumvent the typical route of going to the physician and getting a prescription, especially when it comes to certain types of drugs. Hopefully, people will now be able to identify some of the characteristics of the worst sites.

It sounds like she was ordering painkillers and sedatives, including one that is not available in Canada due to a high risk of overdose. In a lot of ways, this case has similarities to buying Oxcontin on the shady street corner in your own town. You never really know what you're getting. The only difference is that she bought it online.

From Vancouver Sun:
A few days before she died just after Christmas, Marcia Bergeron started losing her hair and had blurred vision -- telling friends on Quadra Island that she feared she was coming down with the flu.

It was only later that those investigating her death discovered the truth: She had slowly been poisoned.

But this is no murder mystery.

The B.C. Coroners Service announced Tuesday that it believes Bergeron, 57, was poisoned by tainted pills she ordered online from a bogus Canadian pharmacy. ...more

Online drug loss hard pill to swallow

The numbers are now verifying what we already knew. Canadian online pharmacies had a tough year in 2006. I think anyone who has survived this long has likely found their niche and will continue in business. However, there is no real sign of growth in the industry. With the manufacturer restrictions solidly in place and Medicare Part D entering its second year, the only factor that could change is the exchange rate. A sinking Canadian dollar may be the only way these pharmacies will see leaps in sales.

From the Financial Post:
Dozens of Canadian Internet pharmacies have closed shop or laid off staff after sales at the country’s online drugstores plunged by nearly 50% last year.

A report released Wednesday by IMS Health, a company that tracks pharmaceutical sales, suggests Internet pharmacies sold only $211-million worth of prescriptions into the U.S. in 2006, a steep drop from sales of $420-million in 2005.

The declining revenues forced about 30 online drugstores — whose chief business was selling cheap Canadian medication to U.S. seniors — to close around the country, according to the Canadian International Pharmacy Association. ...more

Buying online drugs: Dos and Don'ts

From CTV News:
Health agencies and experts are providing advice to Canadians who are considering buying drugs over the Internet, with the issue launched back into the spotlight after the recent death of a B.C. woman who took a drug she purchased online.

The B.C. coroner says the 57-year-old Vancouver Island woman bought a sedative not legally sold in Canada, and which has been linked to overdose deaths in other countries. ...more

Pills bought online likely killed B.C. woman

From the Globe and Mail:
Pills bought on the Internet appear to have killed a 57-year-old woman on Vancouver Island, regional coroner Rose Stanton said Tuesday.

She said the woman, who lived in the Campbell River area, bought a sedative not legally sold in Canada and which has been linked to overdose deaths in other countries. ...more

U.S. bureau looking into unapproved cancer drug

From the National Post:
The fraud division of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration is looking into concerns that an American entrepreneur and chemist are selling an unapproved compound to people fighting cancer.

The FDA wouldn't say if there is an actual investigation into the buydca.com Web site, but in general, if the agency learns about something unsafe or illegal, it moves swiftly to take action and protect the public. ...more

Patients 'desperate' for drugs

From the Edmonton Sun:
Desperate cancer patients are using the Internet to buy an experimental anti-cancer medicine intended for animals and self-medicating - despite stern warnings from medical professionals.

"It's a fool's game, but terminal cancer patients can be desperate, grasping at whatever straws are there," said Dr. Louis Francescutti, a local emergency room physician and injury prevention expert. ...more