by Gabriel Levitt, President, PharmacyChecker.com and Prescription Justice | Dec 31, 2015 | Drug Importation, Drug Prices, Online Pharmacies, Skipping medications
As we move out of 2015 and into 2016 with a strong wave of hostility rising throughout the country about high drug prices, what I’m about to report may seem incongruous. Fewer Americans seem to be buying lower cost medications from other countries. For the past few years, largely based on data from the CDC in 2013, I’ve published the number five million as the approximate number of Americans who, due to high drug prices, import medication annually for personal use. But a newer CDC report published in 2015 (that I recently came across) puts that number closer to four million, a 20% decrease.
If drug prices are going up, and Americans are fed up with prescription costs, wouldn’t you expect more people to be buying lower cost medications from outside the country? With fewer Americans buying medication internationally, potentially one million, how many of them are simply not taking prescribed medication? Are our most trusted authorities scaring Americans away from obtaining lower cost medications from other countries, or has affordable access improved over the past few years?
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Tagged with: Alliance for Safe Online Pharmacies, CDC, Center for Safe Internet Pharmacies, Drug Importation, Drug Prices, FDA, National Association of Boards of Pharmacy, Online Pharmacies, Partnership for Safe Medicines, Patent Cliff, Seroquel, United States
by PharmacyChecker.com | Mar 27, 2015 | Online Pharmacies, Pharmacychecker Online Pharmacy Report
Continuing our quest to get the truth out and for our elected leaders in Congress to take bold action to protect online access to safe and affordable medication, we’re publishing a section a week of our report called Online Pharmacies, Personal Drug Importation, and Public Health. This week we look at the reasons why Americans look online to buy medication:
High U.S. drug prices are one of the main reasons that Americans go online to buy medication. As stated previously, according to the CDC, about five million Americans buy medication internationally each year due to high domestic drug prices. The CDC’s figures and others identified below show that over the past 15 years, tens of millions of Americans have purchased medication from outside the U.S. using online pharmacies to save money or because they could not afford the prices at their local pharmacies. Fifty million Americans between the ages of 18 to 64 did not fill a prescription in 2012 due to cost, up from 29 million in 2001. The data demonstrates that Americans need international online pharmacies due to a public health crisis of high domestic drug prices.
There are other reasons Americans go online to buy medication besides cost. Online pharmacies offer convenience and anonymity. For some consumers with mobility problems or for those who live in rural locations, ordering online and receiving medication by mail can be very helpful. Others may feel embarrassed about their medical conditions, which are sometimes unintentionally disclosed at their local pharmacy counters, preferring to order privately online.
Unfortunately, some Americans go online seeking medication without first obtaining a prescription from their healthcare providers. Many such people should not be judged. Americans who are uninsured may be unable to afford the medical care necessary to get a prescription and shop from online pharmacies that do not require one. Others just don’t want the “hassle” of going to the doctor and getting a prescription. There are obvious and inherent dangers in taking certain medications without first consulting with a licensed prescriber. Additionally, online pharmacies, foreign and domestic, that do not require a prescription are more likely to sell falsified and substandard medication and not ship medication safely.
Growing numbers of insured Americans in the coming years, a result of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, will lead to a decline in medications ordered online without a prescription. However, many newly insured will find that their prescribed medications are not covered by their plans and are too expensive to pay for out-of-pocket at a U.S. pharmacy. For some, international online pharmacies are the only route to obtaining needed medication.
Finally, some Americans looking to obtain prescription narcotics without a prescription turn to the Internet, but the prevalence of such purchases are a small part of America’s prescription abuse problem. Still, the most serious negative health consequences related to prescription drugs bought over the Internet are from controlled drugs purchased without a valid prescription. The Ryan Haight Online Pharmacy Consumer Protection Act of 2008, which largely banned online prescribing for controlled substances, was named after 18 year-old Ryan Haight who purchased prescription narcotics from an online pharmacy based in Oklahoma without a valid prescription and died from an overdose.
Tagged with: CDC, Drug Prices, narcotics, Ryan Haight Online Pharmacy Consumer Protection Act of 2008
by PharmacyChecker.com | Feb 27, 2015 | Pharmacychecker Online Pharmacy Report
Last week we wrote that we would present a new section of Gabe Levitt’s report on online pharmacies. This week, we are going to start off with the Executive Summary of the report. We’ve given a sample below, but you’ll have to visit PharmacyChecker.com to view the whole Executive Summary.
The U.S. government relies on the Government Accountability Office (GAO) for objective and independent research and analysis of government programs and policies that affect public health. GAO’s report entitled Internet Pharmacies: Federal Agencies and States Face Challenges Combatting Rogue Sites, Particularly Those Abroad (the “GAO report”) contains critical inaccuracies and omits important peer-reviewed research to the extent that lawmakers and their staffs will likely draw erroneous conclusions about international online pharmacies that could lead to overreaching and unnecessary enforcement actions that disadvantage consumers and threaten public health. The GAO report was written pursuant to Section 1127 of the Food and Drug Administration Safety and Innovation Act of 2012 (FDASIA), a law dedicated to protecting public health.
In contrast to the GAO report, the following holistic, consumer-focused, evidence-based analysis discusses online pharmacies within the important context of a health crisis caused by high drug prices in America, and can more appropriately guide lawmakers on how to protect the public from counterfeit or substandard medication. Legitimate public health concerns about rogue online pharmacies are being used to encourage legislative, regulatory, and private sector actions that curtail online access to safe and affordable medication. The consequence of overreach could be millions more Americans facing economic hardship or having to forgo prescribed medication, which studies show can lead to more sickness and death.
Fifty million Americans did not fill a prescription due to cost in 2012, according to the Commonwealth Fund. According to the Harvard School of Public Health, over half of Americans who do not take prescription medication due to cost report becoming sicker.1 That means potentially 25 million Americans become sicker each year because they can’t afford prescribed medication. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), about five million Americans buy prescription drugs from foreign sources each year for reasons of cost. Additional estimates show that between four and five million Americans get their imported prescription drugs through international online pharmacies due to their lower prices.
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Tagged with: CDC, Commonwealth Fund, drug affordability, FDASIA, GAO, government auditing standards, Medication Adherence, Section 1127
