Why does Big Pharma not like PharmacyChecker?

I have been fighting misinformation and lies by drug companies for what is now approaching two decades. I don’t believe personal drug importation is “the answer” to our drug prices problem. I believe it helps people now, in a current healthcare system rife with murky price gouging. I started a non-profit organization called Prescription Justice that is dedicated to a future America where drug prices are lower and the need to go online for lower prices in other countries is greatly reduced. We’ll get there… Until then, there’s PharmacyChecker.com.

While PharmacyChecker is small, our very existence and message threatens the pharmaceutical industry’s greedy profit model and exposes its lies about prescription drug importation. Prescription drug importation, when orders are placed online and filled by licensed pharmacies that require a prescription, is not dangerous. Buying counterfeit medications and/or controlled drugs without a prescription online is. There’s a huge difference but one that the industry has probably spent hundreds of millions of dollars trying to conflate for almost 20 years. One of my best articulations of this baloney was published in the NY Times in 2014.

For an objective treatment of this issue, please see: Personal medicine importation: What are the risks, and how can they be mitigated?

In late 2018, things went too far. The National Association of Boards of Pharmacy (NABP) added our website, www.pharmacychecker.com, to a list of “Not Recommended Sites,” an initiative initially funded by drug company giant Pfizer, sold as a way to help fight rogue online pharmacies and counterfeit drugs online. They even added PharmacyCheckerBlog.com to the list, a website where I write about policy and politics relating to drug prices, online pharmacies, and importation.

The NABP’s list mostly includes really bad rogue pharmacy sites selling drugs, real and fake, and without requiring a prescription. We don’t belong on it and we sued NABP and other groups that we believe are funded by or allied with drug companies: Partnership for Safe Medicines, Alliance for Safe Online Pharmacies, Center for Safe Internet Pharmacies and LegitScript to fight back.

Microsoft’s Bing search engine uses this “Not Recommended Sites” list to flag websites and warn users against clicking on them. There is now a scary, red popup warning on PharmacyChecker.com and PharmacyCheckerBlog.com. So, now many people are duped into not finding the safest online pharmacies with the lowest drug prices.

The Business Leaders for Health Care Transformation (BLHCT) and others have given PharmacyChecker much-needed back up. BLHCT believes that our employer-based health care system is broken. And, for the record, I agree. They know that drug prices are a big part of the problem and that the pharmaceutical industry is capable of the most egregious behavior to make sure America remains its captive marketplace. They recently hosted a sign-on letter to Microsoft’s CEO to help us get this Bing warning taken down. BLHCT’s letter states:

“Mr. Nadella, for the sake of public health, free speech, and fairness to American consumers who cannot afford their medications, take down the censorious warning on Bing against PharmacyChecker.com.”

Read the entire letter here: https://actionnetwork.org/petitions/tell-microsoft-to-stop-suppressing-information-on-drug-affordability