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tommyD
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Illinois wants Canadian drugs
« on: Sep 16th, 2003, 5:51am » |
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This issue is heating up. Use prescription drugs? Write your Congressman/woman.
washingtonpost.com
Illinois May Buy Canadian Drugs
Move Escalates Battle on Prices
By Ceci Connolly
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, September 15, 2003; Page A01
Facing budget-breaking increases in prescription drug bills, the governor of Illinois took the first step yesterday toward purchasing lower-cost medications from Canada, a move that puts him in direct conflict with federal regulators and signals a dramatic escalation in the civil war over U.S. drug prices.
What began a decade ago with busloads of senior citizens trekking across the border in search of cheaper medicines has mushroomed into a nationwide rebellion. It has spread from small, nonprofit groups to the private sector, and now, to local and state officials who are defiantly ignoring warnings by the Bush administration and the pharmaceutical industry that drug reimportation is dangerous and illegal.
Gov. Rod Blagojevich, a Democrat, said he has directed the Illinois special advocate to draft a plan for buying inexpensive medications in Canada for as many as 240,000 state employees and retirees. The change could save the state tens of millions of dollars.
"The status quo on prescription drugs is intolerable and unacceptable," Blagojevich said in an interview yesterday. This year, the state is spending $340 million on prescriptions for its workforce, a 15 percent increase over last year.
"I am optimistic we will be able to save literally millions of dollars for the taxpayers and set a precedent other states will follow," the governor said.
Although Illinois would become the first state to pursue Canadian drug purchases for its workers, Blagojevich joins a much larger trend. Even as Congress debates whether formally to legalize the practice, millions of Americans -- including horse breeders in New Jersey, a retirement village in Ohio and the mayor of Springfield, Mass. -- already have decided for themselves that the financial savings are too large to pass up. Despite its claim that the practice is illegal, the FDA has generally looked the other way.
"There are a lot of bad drugs out there," said FDA Senior Associate Commissioner William Hubbard. "We fear a program like [Illinois's] would put people at risk."
"In my opinion the pharmaceutical corporations and the lobbyists have an absolute stranglehold on Washington," said Springfield Mayor Michael J. Albano. Since July, he has enrolled more than 800 city employees in a voluntary program that covers maintenance medications bought from a Canadian wholesaler.
For the rest of the story see:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A10735-2003Sep14.html
-tommyD
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Pinkfloyd
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Re: Illinois wants Canadian drugs
« Reply #1 on: Sep 16th, 2003, 6:23pm » |
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on Sep 16th, 2003, 5:51am, tommyD wrote:This issue is heating up. Use prescription drugs? Write your Congressman/woman.
washingtonpost.com
Illinois May Buy Canadian Drugs
Move Escalates Battle on Prices
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Yeah, The spirit of old Abe Lincoln is still inside us Illinoisians. We shall set our people free!!!
If things continue as they are, there will surely be a State vs. Fed revolution.
Did someone in DC allow the feds to go and get the origianl copies of the founding documents and white out all the states rights sections? Who was in charge of minding the store out there anyway???
PF
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eyes_afire
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Re: Illinois wants Canadian drugs
« Reply #2 on: Sep 16th, 2003, 10:20pm » |
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Quote:| "There are a lot of bad drugs out there," said FDA Senior Associate Commissioner William Hubbard. "We fear a program like [Illinois's] would put people at risk." |
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Quote:| warnings by the Bush administration and the pharmaceutical industry that drug reimportation is dangerous and illegal. |
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LMAO, logic has obviously fled.
I guess that's why we see thousands of dead canadiens when we cross the border... killed by drugs 
With arguments like that, the federal government is likely to become increasingly irrelevant.
--- Steve
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wayner57
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Re: Illinois wants Canadian drugs
« Reply #3 on: Sep 17th, 2003, 7:43am » |
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This Canadian's point of view!
Drugs are cheaper in Canada because our Federal Government subsidises the prescription drug industry with Canadian taxpayers money, this is in fact one of our social programs. I live in a province that has many internet pharmacies, almost all of their customers are Americans. These internet pharmacies are draining the Canadian supply of drugs, causing shortages in stocks for Canadians trying to get their prescriptions.
Recently 2 large drug companies are refusing to sell to internet pharmacies, unless they guarentee that the drugs will not leave the country. I understand lawsuits are pending.
I believe in free enterprize, but using Canadian taxpayer's money to susidise drugs that leave the country is not right, and the Canadian Govt. is being pressured by lobby groups to stop the practice.
The drugs in the US are the same as the ones in Canada, often being manufactured by Canadian divisions of American or International companies.
Americans that want cheaper drugs should lobby their Govt to subsidise the drug companies, or offer medical insurance to Americans to reduce or cover the cost of prescription drugs.
This Canadian's .02 worth!
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Prense
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Re: Illinois wants Canadian drugs
« Reply #4 on: Sep 17th, 2003, 5:42pm » |
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Interesting point of view...
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Ueli
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Re: Illinois wants Canadian drugs
« Reply #5 on: Sep 17th, 2003, 9:16pm » |
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Drugs are cheaper in Canada because our Federal Government subsidises the prescription drug industry with Canadian taxpayers money.
Give me a break, subsiding pharma companies! Last year Novartis made worldwide a profit of 15% of the net turnover. GSK, Pfizer and others are in the same category. Switzerland is known to have the 2nd highest prizes on medicaments, but in the US the cost of triptans, by example, are 50 to 150% higher than here. The cost to the end user has nothing to do with subsidizing or not, it's the pharma companies that charge as much as they can get away with.
Recently 2 large drug companies are refusing to sell to internet pharmacies, unless they guarentee that the drugs will not leave the country.
Of course, their US branches ask their Canadian brethren to help FDA Senior Associate Commissioner William Hubbard to protect US residents from "a lot of bad drugs out there". Or could it just be an attempt to maximize the profit of the international group? Who knows....
...and the Canadian Govt. is being pressured by lobby groups to stop the practice. - what else do you expect? It is the damn duty of lobby groups to protect the interest of the shareholders.
If the Canadian government really subsidizes companies like Pfizer, Novartis, GlaxoSmithKline that only shows that the pharma industry hired the smartest guys and the best lobbyists.
Americans that want cheaper drugs should lobby their Govt to subsidise the drug companies - In poor third world countries some medicaments may be paid partially by the government, but in the rich capitalist countries the pharma companies grab as much as they can get. In the name of free enterprise they block any government intervention in the interest of the patients and they can make so much money that they can hire expensive lobbyist to pressure their views at home and abroad.
Just my 2¢
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Pinkfloyd
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Re: Illinois wants Canadian drugs
« Reply #6 on: Sep 17th, 2003, 10:49pm » |
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The Canadian Government is being pressured by...the American Pharmas. They are threatening to stop selling some drugs altogether in Canada if Canada continues allowing discounted drugs to come back over the border.
The lawsuits are being filed by the American Pharmas to stop the drugs that they sold to Canadian companies at a lower rate. from being sold to people in the US. They want the US citizens to pay the full price, not a subsidized (by the pharmas) price. They are pissed that they are reducing the profit margin so they can sell "overseas" (a reduced rate often dictated by foreign governments) and then those drugs are resold in the US with foreign companies making the profit that the US pharmas forfeited for the right to be able to export.
Its all greed and there is plenty to go around. Look at it from the pharmas point of view.
Example....You manufacture and sell bicycles in Canada. You sell them in Canada for $60.00 US. (only because I don't know the exchange rate) You want to sell more of them so you want to export them into the US. The US Gov. tells you fine, but, to fit properly into our own bicycle market without running US Bicycle Co. out of business, they want you to fit into the lower priced marketplace. (because US Bicycles paid 5 million in re-election campaign bribes...I mean donations). So, if you want to sell them here, you have to sell them for $40.00 US, cutting your profit margin way down. You want to put more Canadians to work, so you agree.
Then you find out that USA Bicycle Co. (an import/export subsidiary of US Bicycle Co.) is purchasing your bicycles for $40.00 from you and is offering your Bicycle for sale in Canada for $50.00US and selling a shitload of them.......not only cutting into your own Canadian market but making more profit percentage-wise than you are on your own bicycles.
If I explained that correctly and clearly enough, I think that you might agree that your next step would be to pressure your government into pressuring the US government. You would want to stop the resale of your bike unless you make the profits you feel you are entitled to make. After all, YOU made the bike...why should you be forced to allow someone else to make a higher profit margin on your bike, than you?
So....you would then sue the US Bicycle co., and the USA Bicycle company, for unfair trade practices. If USA Bicycle co. can sell the bicycle in the US for $50.00, and in Canada for $60.00, why can't you?
You probably could if you sent in 6 million in re-election contibutions. 
P.Floyd
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"Nothing is so firmly believed as what we least know."
"There is no passion so contagious as that of fear."
[Michel de Montaigne
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www.obscuredview.blogspot.com
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eyes_afire
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Re: Illinois wants Canadian drugs
« Reply #7 on: Sep 17th, 2003, 10:55pm » |
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The part that is appalling is the campaign to scare us into thinking that canadian drugs are dangerous. A senior commissioner of the FDA ought to know full well that drugs released in Canada are usually tested to meet United States Pharmacopeia (USP) specifications (I don't believe there is any widely used Canadian Pharmacopeia in existance). Drugs released in Europe must meet specifications of the European Pharmacopeia (EP) and those released in Asia must meet the Japanese Pharmacopeia (JP) specifications. The scopes of each compendia are not very different and the goals are the same. The International Conference on Harmonisation has made attempts to harmonize all 3 compendia... they are that similar.
The part that pisses me off is my government's (US) attempt to deceive the masses by spreading false fears.
Who is paying off whom this time?
--- Steve
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