Prescription Drug Imports: Two Shots of Good News
Americans who buy their prescription medications from pharmacies in Canada got a double dose of good news this week. Federal officials will no longer stop people crossing the border with a 90-day supply, thanks to an amendment in the Homeland Security appropriations bill signed by President Bush on Wednesday. Mail-order prescriptions should also make a smoother crossing, as Customs and Border Patrol announced it will back off from its aggressive policy of seizing packages. Between last November and mid-July, the agency seized some 40,000 packages, many of them headed to cash-strapped seniors, as part of a stepped-up effort to stop the sale of counterfeit drugs.
Federal law prohibits the importation of prescription drugs from foreign countries, but the government, short on resources, has generally turned a blind eye to the small personal orders coming by mail. As of October 9, Customs will leave the decision making about the small imports to the Food and Drug Administration, where it has traditionally resided. Neither CBP nor the FDA will disclose who made the calls on the mail-order drug procedures—first to crack down, now to loosen up. But announcement of the reversal came Monday in an E-mail to members of Congress from the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees CBP. Experts say that without additional funding and a policy shift at the FDA, seniors can expect their medications to be delivered again without a hitch. (The FDA has stated it will "refocus… limited resources for the processing of individually imported unapproved pharmaceuticals" but refused to comment about possible procedural changes.)
The risk of getting fake and unsafe drugs from abroad is real: Lynn Hollinger, a spokeswoman for CBP, says that one recent sampling effort found that some 10.5 percent of imported prescription drugs are counterfeit, contain the wrong active ingredients, or contain no active ingredients. The best way to tackle that problem, in the opinion of Andy Troszok, president of Extended Care Pharmacy Ltd. in Alberta, Canada, is to have U.S. pharmacy boards inspect and certify Canadian pharmacies. Extended Care has been inspected and certified by Nevada's State Board of Pharmacy, so people in the state can order drugs without breaking state laws–though they're still floutingUncle Sam.
While this week's developments come as welcome news to seniors who want their medications at affordable prices, many consumer advocates think what's really needed are price controls on prescriptions in this country similar to those in Canada. Drug prices there are negotiated by the national healthcare system.
"People get their band-aid back," says Peter Lurie, deputy director of health research at Public Citizen, a consumer advocacy group. But "surgery to the system is required."
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