Please Don't Protect Me

Seniors can take care of themselves when it comes to choosing safe prescriptions from Canada, so to all our 'protectors'--Butt Out!

by Daniel Hines
Publisher
America's Seniors/TodaysSeniorsNetwork.com

Recently, a friend of mine who is a retired Caterpillar Tractor Co. employee showed me a flyer put out by some fellow retirees:

"When NAFTA was passed, it was great for Free Trade...
"When GATT was passed, it was the capitalistic system winning on the world stage...
"When we lose jobs to off-shore imports, it's the free enterprise system at work...
"When we order prescription drugs from Canada, it's unfair competition to the drug companies"...or so they claim.

Now, realizing the hypocrisy of their claims, the drug companies are enlisting allies in a new diversionary tactic. Companies that have acted illegally in the market place, often 'buying ' market share, policy-makers that cry for individual responsibility and freedom of choice without governmental interference, and others who have not minded overcharging seniors for years, imperiling their well-being, suddenly are concerned about the ability of seniors to make intelligent decisions in purchasing prescriptions from Canada.

The solution: Protect seniors by restricting the use of the internet as a purchasing tool. After all, these people claim, the seniors just don't know enough to make a proper decision.

Never mind that all the reputable companies--such as Universal Drug Store with whom America's Seniors/TodaysSeniorsNetwork.com is proud to have formed an association--demand medical records, written and verifiable prescriptions from verifiable physicians, and, as in the case of Universal Drug Store, even offer personal one-on-one consultation.

The first example we saw of this was in the wake of the failed Emergency Room policy for Medicaid. When public pressure forced the Bush Administration to revoke its withdrawal of such funding, the FDA immediately launched an attack on Canadian pharmacies, noting their concern about the "safety" of these low-cost, high-quality pharmaceuticals. Now, Members of the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee of the Congressional Energy and Commerce Committee --that's right the ENERGY and Commerce Committee--has heard testimony from a generic drug manufacturer who is also decrying the fact that seniors are 'forced' to purchase their prescriptions at tremendous savings over the Internet in what the company mistakenly says is an illegal transaction.

Of course, Congressman Peter Deustch of Florida just happens to serve on the Subcommittee and just happens to have Andrx, a manufacturer of generic drugs, in his district.

And, while he is rightfully proud to have the company in his district, he--and the company--have an obligation to deal with facts. A few suggestions follow:

1. Generic drugs are good, we agree. There should be more of them and at low cost, good value conditions.
2. However, the president of the company, who is a PhD and should know better, needs to realize that it is not illegal to purchase prescriptions over the internet.
3. And, if those perfectly legal, safe, and effective prescriptions are available in either their brand name or a lower-cost generic substitute that is lower than the U.S.-made generic, so much the better for seniors. That's really free enterprise.
4. By purchasing from a reputable firm, seniors have as much--perhaps even more--assurance of safety and purity. Canada is not some third-world nation where prescriptions are prepared in a shanty. And, if anyone has followed the case of the Kansas City pharmacist who watered down medications for cancer patients, it is obvious that the U.S. pharmaceutical industry, which generally has high standards, can also have some fingers pointed at it.
5. Andrx would be better served to work on the real issue--the availability of low-cost prescriptions, available in an open and competitive market to benefit seniors. Universal Drug Store and others offer such a benefit to seniors and to suggest otherwise is misleading.