Is Big Pharma Behind the FDA’s Decision to Destroy People’s Affordable Prescription Drug Imports?
The FDA personnel responsible for the actions described in the title of this post will not like how I characterize what they are doing. It sounds really bad. Could it really be true: the FDA is using taxpayer dollars to destroy prescription drug orders, including for asthma, cancer, diabetes, and heart conditions? Is Congress giving the FDA more taxpayer dollars each year to stop imports of opioids, most notoriously fentanyl, coming in through the international mail, but is then used to destroy non-opioid, non-fentanyl, and non-controlled drugs that Americans order to treat their chronic health issues?
Kaiser Health News (KHN) reports that the answer is a resounding YES. Kaiser’s headline is:
Despite Pharma Claims, Illicit Drug Shipments to US Aren’t Full of Opioids. It’s Generic Viagra.
KHN points to the lobbying efforts of Big Pharma to conflate the safe importation of lower-cost drugs with the nation’s scourge of opioid death — a problem initially caused by Big Pharma. We’ve come to expect the lowest common denominator from the drug company lobbyists and spin doctors.
NBC News, which republishes Kaiser Health News’ syndicated content singles out the FDA for blame with its own headline on the same story:
Drug shipments to U.S. hold cheap generic Viagra, not opioids feared by FDA
The FDA has long blocked the importation of cheap medicine, saying it opens the door to opioids. The agency’s own data shows that rarely happens.
The story shows that Big Pharma and the FDA appear to be aligned on this issue. One of the problems is the revolving door between the FDA and the pharmaceutical industry. Some FDA personnel want to get high-paying jobs with Big Pharma and have their eyes on the future. Drug companies want to hire people who were with the FDA because it helps them know how things work at the agency to their commercial advantage. Also, in their defense: certain people have education, training and skills that make it reasonable to go back and forth between the two. BUT WE HAVE TO HAVE GUARDRAILS UP and we don’t right now.
The FDA would respond to me by saying, “Hey, Gabe, the importation of unapproved new drugs, whether for personal use or otherwise…is illegal.” But the FDA is not telling the whole truth. Commercial drug importation is legal and that’s why most drugs Americans buy at Walgreens, CVS, and Walmart are from other countries. The caveat is that only drug companies can import their own drugs for commercial use. I keep saying “commercial use.” Why is that important? Commercial use means importing for re-sale. The law is replete with instructions, opinions, and directions from Congress that the FDA should permit drug importation by individual patients for their own use that may otherwise not be permitted for commercial use. Congress wants this competition from lower drug prices in other countries — as ironic as it sounds. I lay this out in some detail in a blog post I published on PharmacyCheckerBlog back in 2018:
Personal Drug Importation is Protected by Congress
Read it and tell me whether the law prohibiting commercial importation does not treat personal importation much more favorably.
The bottom line is that where the FDA can avoid destroying people’s personal prescription drug imports en route to patients who used a prescription to purchase that medication, the FDA can rely on enforcement discretion — permitted and encouraged by law! It seems they are headed in the wrong direction.
On a last note. The Kaiser Health News article quotes an FDA employee saying: “Importing drugs from abroad simply for cost savings is not a good enough reason to expose yourself to the additional risks…The drug may be fine, but we don’t know, so we assume it is not.” Easy for that person to say if they can afford their drugs. Also, remember “the drug may be fine.” The truth is that accredited international online pharmacies, such as those accredited by PharmacyChecker sell safe and effective prescription drugs pursuant to a prescription and THEY DON’T SELL OPIOIDS.
See: Personal Medicine Importation: What Are the Risks, and How Can They Be Mitigated?
