From the Olympian (Wash.):
State opens Canada drug site
Washington state launched a Web site Tuesday that will help residents buy prescription drugs from approved Canadian pharmacies.

The site, www.rx.wa.gov, will help seniors and others struggling to pay for increasingly expensive drugs, Gov. Gary Locke said, acknowledging that he is defying the Bush administration's stance against importing low-cost medications.

From the Boston Globe:
Business brisk as Americans stream to Canada for flu shots
Americans are streaming into Canada -- in some cases by the boatload -- in search of flu vaccine.

With a US shortage caused by contaminated vaccine and flu season approaching, business has been brisk at Canadian clinics and doctors' offices along the border from British Columbia to as far east as New Brunswick.

A Canadian Internet pharmacy is working with a half-dozen physicians in Montreal to offer weekend flu-shot tours to New Yorkers. The price is $75 for a medical exam and inoculation. Lodging and meals, which can be arranged by a travel agency working with the pharmacy, are extra.

From theGlobe and Mail:
Discredited HRT drugs marketed in new versions
Now that the touted health benefits of hormone-replacement therapy for postmenopausal women have been largely discredited, pharmaceutical companies are promoting low-dose versions of the same drugs, according to a new study.

They are doing so despite the fact that there has been no research showing low-dose HRT is any safer, said Dr. Sumit Majumdar, an assistant professor at the University of Alberta's division of internal medicine.

From the Anchorage Daily News :
Rx Canada
When Angie Long orders her medication, it often comes from a faraway pharmacy in Canada, not from a local one in Juneau.

For the past two years, 85-year-old Long has been turning to Canada to buy five drugs she needs daily. She decided to send her prescriptions to Canada for one reason: She couldn't beat the price.

Long and her 88-year-old husband don't work anymore and depend on income from Social Security, a small retirement benefit for her husband and some savings. Buying drugs from Canada may not be for everyone, she said, but it helps cut costs when you're older and need to take multiple medications. Long needs drugs to combat high blood pressure, cholesterol and spine problems that remain after several back surgeries.

From CBC North :
Drug tracking not in cards, says Yukon minister
The Yukon's health minister says there's no plan that he's aware of to improve the tracking of prescription drugs in the territory.

Peter Jenkins says he did ask his staff to look into the issue about a year ago, but doesn't recall what came of that request.

Two weeks ago the president of the Yukon Medical Association said he'd like to see the government consider a better computer monitoring system, so pharmacists and doctors can identify people shopping around for drugs.

From the South Bend (IN) Tribune:
Pfizer exec: Canadian drug imports safe
The regulated reimportation of prescription drugs from Canada would pose no safety risk to American consumers, according to a pharmaceutical company executive who stumped here Monday for Gov. Joe Kernan.

The executive, Peter Rost, said reimportation is common and safe in Europe, where northern European countries buy cheaper prescription drugs from southern European countries. And he said concerns about counterfeit or unregulated drugs are no reason to ban reimportation, but to legalize and regulate it.

"That is exactly the reason we need regulated reimportation," said Rost, a physician and marketing executive at pharmaceutical giant Pfizer. The company makes Lipitor and Viagra, among other drugs.

From the Globe and Mail:
Was big pharma caught in its own web of spin?
If it weren't for a quirk of telephone etiquette, the results of an investigation into Canada's Internet pharmacy industry might have produced some straightforward headlines such as, Internet Drugstores Vulnerable To Terrorism, Study Says.

But the story got a little more complicated on Friday afternoon when the news accidentally leaked to the industry association for Internet pharmacies.

David MacKay, executive director of the Canadian International Pharmacy Association, dialled into a conference call that afternoon, expecting to hear a briefing about a forum he plans to attend this week in Montreal.

From the Halifax Daily News:
Cdn doctors urged to get legal protection if giving cross-border flu shots
The organization that insures Canadian doctors is urging them to arm themselves legally if they are giving flu shots to Americans crossing the border because of vaccine shortages in the United States.

The Canadian Medical Protective Association says it has no problem with the practice, so long as doctors are getting U.S. patients to sign waivers stating that in the event they decide to take legal action, they'll do it in Canadian courts.

From Canoe.ca:
Internet pharmacy group upset at suggestion industry vulnerable to terrorists
A spokesman for the online pharmacy industry said Monday he has caught his opponents "cooking a plot" to portray the operations as vulnerable to being overtaken or hijacked by terrorists.

David MacKay, executive director of the Canadian International Pharmacy Association, said a conference call last week to plan part of a cross-border policy forum in Montreal on Wednesday has led him to believe critics are using terrorism as their latest scare tactic.

From the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:
The Rx chase: Cheaper drugs via the Bahamas
On an island used by bootleggers in the 1920s and speedboat-running cocaine cowboys in the 1980s, a drab warehouse now conducts a new kind of enterprise American authorities consider illegal - selling prescription drugs.

The warehouse near the Freeport airport is run by a Canadian pharmacy, CanadaRX. It buys prescription drugs from wholesalers in Europe and elsewhere. It sells them to Americans at prices 30% to 50% lower than U.S. prices.

Harvey Organ, co-owner of CanadaRX, says he was forced to set up the Freeport operation because the major American drug manufacturers, led by Pfizer, have reduced shipments to Canada to block pharmacies from selling drugs to U.S. citizens.

From the Winnipeg Sun:
Internet physician makes mouse calls
The Internet has revolutionized pharmaceutical services, dismantling borders well before countries were ready. Now a Winnipeg Internet pharmacy magnate is ready to do the same with medical diagnoses.

Daren Jorgenson has a 20-member information technology team based in India creating new health-care software. He says it will combine patient histories with medical expertise to create an online dialogue and eventually create paperless physicians' offices.

From the Portsmouth (NH) Herald:
Governor's link a Rx for disaster?
Retired pharmacist Merton Dyer wouldn’t buy his prescriptions from Canadian mail-order company K-Tel Drug.

This is in spite of the fact Dyer personally inspected K-Tel’s Manitoba operations at the request of Gov. Craig Benson before co-authoring a report endorsing K-Tel as safe for New Hampshire residents.

Still, Dyer told the Herald this past week he was "not comfortable with" several aspects of K-Tel’s pharmaceutical business - enough so to keep him from ever becoming a customer.

From the Winnipeg Sun:
'Monkey could make money'
It is the economic engine that drives Daren Jorgenson's dreams. The University of Manitoba pharmacy grad has made millions from his Winnipeg-based Canadameds.com Internet pharmacy. But to hear him tell it a simian could have done the same.

"I don't think we're these crazy, super-smart entrepreneurs. I think we got into an industry at the beginning that anybody would do well at, because the demand in the U.S. was so large and the number of people doing it here ... was so few. A monkey could make money."

From the Boston Globe:
Pharmacies in Canada zero in on US Latinos
Having built a $1 billion market in illegal, cross-border prescriptions by focusing on American seniors without drug coverage, Canadian Internet pharmacies are setting their sights on minority populations in the United States, especially Latinos, to drive a fresh wave of sales.

More pharmacies are offering Spanish-language versions of their websites. They are advertising in local ethnic newspapers and on radio. And they are looking to forge ties with local community leaders.

Frome the Washington Times:
U.S. citizens flock to Canada for flu shots
Mary Buffamonti called her doctor in Tonawanda, N.Y., this week and found out that she couldn't get a flu shot.

So she crossed the Canadian border and went to a clinic in Fort Erie, Ontario, just across the Niagara River from Buffalo, N.Y.

'That was the main thing, the shortage. I didn't know if I could get a shot or not," the 77-year-old Mrs. Buffamonti said. Americans are traveling to Canada for an injection of flu vaccine and a shot at some peace of mind.

From the Seattle Times:
Plenty of flu shots available in Canada
Several clinics in the Vancouver, B.C., area are offering flu shots to Americans, and their phones are ringing off the hooks with potential customers.

"We're definitely welcoming Americans," said Lynn Crosby, an office assistant at the International Travel Health and Vaccination Clinic in Surrey, B.C., about 10 minutes from the border. "We had someone here today from South Carolina, and a woman from New York is flying in tomorrow."

From the Toronto Star:
Online drug wars
The big, brand-name drug companies have finally thrown down the gauntlet. If Ottawa doesn't curb Internet pharmacy sales to the United States, the multinational firms won't ship enough prescription drugs into this country to serve Canadians.

"Canadian prescription drug supplies are generated to meet Canadian patient demand," Canada's Research-Based Pharmaceutical Companies, the trade association for brand-name firms, announced this week. "Their diversion to U.S. citizens means they are not available to Canadians.

From Bloomberg:
Canadian Drugs, Banned by FDA, Are Safe as Those Sold in U.S.
Prescription medicines from Canada, banned from the U.S., are at least as safe as those sold by American drugstores, according to a Harvard University professor, state regulators and Canadian authorities.

Inspections and anti-counterfeiting measures in Canada and other industrialized countries are just as effective as U.S. systems, said Jerry Avorn, a Harvard Medical School drug safety specialist. Carmen Catizone, president of the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy, a state regulators' group, rates U.S. and Canadian drugs as equally safe.

From the Vancouver Sun:
Special flu shot clinic set up in Vancouver this weekend for Americans
So many Americans are cross-border shopping for flu shots that the Vancouver health authority has set up a one-day clinic for Americans only.

Americans are flooding into clinics along the U.S.-B.C. border -- including one at the Vancouver International Airport -- looking for the shots that have become increasingly scarce in the U.S.

And while Canadian officials have repeatedly said the U.S. demand will not be allowed to impact Canadian supplies, the owner of two B.C. clinics urged Canadians -- especially those who are not considered at high risk of getting the flu -- not to delay getting their shots if they want one.

From the Providence (RI) Journal:
Pharmacists sue over import of Canadian drugs
Mayor Edward M. Lambert Jr. is being sued by five local pharmacists who say he is breaking the law by helping city employees and residents purchase imported Canadian drugs at steep discounts.

The pharmacists are expected to appear this afternoon in Taunton Superior Court and request a judicial order that would put a freeze on the city's new prescription drug program.

Lambert's program encourages residents to buy drugs through CanaRX at discounts of as much as 50 percent. On Monday, the city also started letting municipal employees and retired employees purchase the less expensive drugs through CanaRX without paying any deductible.