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Helping Americans Get The Truth About Prescription Drug Savings
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Bing’s New Online Pharmacy “Warnings” Are Misguided and Threaten Public Health

Last week, Bing announced a new effort to use its search engine to warn consumers about threats from “fake” online pharmacies. The big problem is that at least some of the online pharmacies they list are not fake, but represent very real, licensed pharmacies, ones that require valid prescriptions and have been safely helping Americans afford medication for years. We know this because these pharmacies have been carefully evaluated, inspected, and monitored by us at PharmacyChecker.com, and meet high standards of pharmacy practice. See our standards: http://www.pharmacychecker.com/verification_program_guide_and_standards_1_3.pdf.

The online pharmacies targeted by Bing, which are approved in our program, are all located outside the U.S. Curtailing online access to lower cost and safe foreign medication using scare tactics is a strategy employed by the pharmaceutical industry. Indeed, Bing’s action seems to have a lot to do with stopping safe personal drug importation and will recklessly alarm Americans so they don’t buy more affordable medication from other countries.

Here is the warning which appears when a consumer’s Bing search results include links to one of these online pharmacies and they try to click on the link to that online pharmacy:

FDA Online Pharmacy Warning

To choose the pharmacies it targets, Bing is relying on a list of online pharmacies which have received warning letters from the FDA. But, in at least several cases, these warning letters, which you can find on the FDA’s website, do not indicate a pharmacy to be fake, nor do they pertain to sales of counterfeit or adulterated medications, nor to any problems with the pharmacy meeting good standards of practice. Instead they relate to 1) sales of lawfully manufactured generic versions of drugs that are still on patent in the U.S., and 2) medications that are approved in Canada but not in the U.S. We will examine each of these letters fully over the next week, but our initial review indicates that these issues have been addressed by the online pharmacies in our Verification Program that received the letters.

The genesis of Bing’s action, which is most likely coordinated with the FDA, comes from the scare tactics about foreign medications conceived by pharmaceutical companies and their lobbying largesse. Why else would Bing decide to target only online pharmacies when many other pharmacies, pharmaceutical companies, medical device manufactures, and dietary supplement distributors have also received FDA warning letters for various infractions, yet Bing does not target them with its pop-up warning?

Bing’s actions would be great if the websites it is targeting were all fake or rogue online pharmacies, but they are not. When consumers see Bing’s warning, they will likely do one of three things:

  1. Keep searching for another online pharmacy that charges a price they can afford. They may find one of the tens of thousands of rogue pharmacy websites that don’t require a prescription (but are not included on FDA’s new list) and buy from that one. Then they are far more likely to end up with a counterfeit drug.
  2. Go to their local big chain pharmacy and pay hundreds if not thousands of dollars more for their prescribed medication. The Warning has a link to “safe online health purchases” but those take you to U.S. online pharmacies only, which are often the websites of the big chain pharmacies!
  3. Not take their prescription medication at all. Thirty-five million Americans each year already forgo prescribed medication due to cost.

These are horrible outcomes. Yes, warning Americans about rogue online pharmacies is good public policy. But leading Americans away from safe personal drug importation will just lead to fewer people getting medications they need, more Americans choosing between food and medicine, and larger profits for the big drug companies.

For those interested in a full policy analysis of FDA’s current campaign, please see our report called: “Online Pharmacies, Personal Drug Importation and Public Health.”

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When a Canadian Online Pharmacy Isn’t Just Canadian

An article by Joe Rothstein in EIN News concerning personal drug importation and online pharmacies recently caught our eye for two reasons. First, Mr. Rothstein called out the pharmaceutical industry for funding groups that give poor advice to consumers about buying medication online. Second, Mr. Rothstein identified PharmacyChecker.com as a source for “providing a list of certified Canadian suppliers who sell at prices usually well below the cost of U.S. pharmacies.” It is true that we do that, but our efforts extend far beyond Canada; we also verify and inspect pharmacies in many other countries, which was not mentioned in the article.

So what’s the issue? Remember, that according to the FDA, personally importing medication under most circumstances is technically illegal. Of course, many of us believe that it can be and is done very safely. Mr. Rothstein’s article states “…defenders of the importation law argue that thousands of phony online sites claim to be ‘Canadian’ to fool the unwary, and for self-protection consumers should avoid Canadian sites entirely.” Opponents of personal drug importation use those quotes around Canadian because they believe that dangerous rogue online pharmacies deceive consumers by claiming to be Canadian, only to ship medication from another country. On this count we agree with Big Pharma, however there are also safe Canadian online pharmacies that do refer prescription orders to licensed pharmacies in other countries. (more…)

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How to Save 92% On Crestor

Crestor is one of the most popular cholesterol lowering medications in a group of drugs called statins. It treats a variety of conditions, including hyperlipidemia, mixed dyslipidemia, and hypertriglyceridemia. In 2011, Crestor was the second most popular statin by spending in the U.S. Americans spent $4.4 billion dollars on it. The first was Lipitor on which Americans spent $7.7 billion dollars. You can save thousands of dollars a year by shopping for Crestor online.

Even though Lipitor is now available in a cheaper generic form, the same is not true for Crestor. It will remain expensive, and many Americans will face high prices for Crestor at the pharmacy.

At a local U.S. pharmacy, 90 pills of Crestor 10 mg cost over $600; at the lowest-priced international online pharmacy it’s only $52.20 — a 92% savings. Over one year, that’s just over $2,300!

If you can’t wait a few weeks for the shipping and delivery of your medicine, then you should look for discounts at your local pharmacy. We found that using a drug discount card can save you 29%, and a drug coupon can save you 39%. Check out our table below to see the savings.

If you need your medicine immediately, use either the discount card or coupon. When it comes time to refill, you could order through an international online pharmacy. Just make sure it’s PharmacyChecker.com approved. No matter what you do, don’t stop taking your physician-prescribed medicine.

Savings on 90 Pills of Crestor 10 mg

Program Price Savings over Local Pharmacy Percent savings
U.S. Local Pharmacy $632.97
Discount Card Option $471.71 $161.26 25%
Discount Coupon Option $388.23 $244.74 39%
U.S. Online Pharmacy $472.26 $160.71 25%
International Online Pharmacy $52.20 $580.77 92%

Local pharmacy in New York City, International Online Pharmacy price as found on PharmacyChecker.com. Prices collected 11/26/2012. International Online Pharmacy prices calculated from 84 pills.

If you are looking for Crestor in other strengths, look at these pricing charts:

Crestor 5 mg
Crestor 10 mg
Crestor 20 mg
Crestor 40 mg

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