[Infowarrior] - Œ Where ¹ s My Medication? ¹

[Richard Forno]

ŒWhere¹s My Medication?¹

Feds' crackdown on Rx drugs from Canada perplexes consumers.

By Susan Q. Stranahan

September 2006
http://www.aarp.org/bulletin/prescription/left_in_a_lurch.html?print=yes

Last spring, Nancy Popkin was awaiting her regular mail delivery of Fosamax,
an osteoporosis medication. Instead, she received a notice from the U.S.
Department of Homeland Security that she was violating federal law.

Popkin's shipment is one of more than 39,000 packages of prescription drugs
ordered by Americans that federal authorities have seized since last fall.
"I was horrified," says Popkin, a financial adviser in Salem, Mass. And then
she got angry. "I saw the heading Department of Homeland Security and I
thought, with everything that's going on in the world, they get up a case
against senior citizens?"

Last fall Homeland Security's Customs and Border Protection quietly stepped
up its confiscation of prescription drugs bought from Canada. In recent
years, Americans‹many of them older‹have spent between $500 million and $1
billion annually on medicines in Canada, where brand-name drugs, including
those made by U.S. companies, are often significantly cheaper. Although the
cross-border shipments are illegal, authorities did little to stop the
practice‹until Nov. 17.

That's when seizures of prescription drug shipments to America intensified.
Warning letters offered recipients the option of "voluntarily abandoning"
their drugs to authorities for disposal or asking the U.S. Food and Drug
Administration to determine if they "should be refused admission into the
United States."

Popkin, who has ordered Fosamax by mail for years, was out $115, the price
of a three-month supply of the drug. Her local pharmacy charged her $76 for
a one-month supply.

Officials say the new enforcement policy is intended to protect consumers.
"Some people weren't aware that [importing drugs] is illegal and that it's
not safe," says Lynn Hollinger, a spokeswoman for Homeland Security.

Others say safety is not a major issue, noting that Canada has strict
quality controls. A 2004 Government Accountability Office study concluded
that the composition of drugs from Canadian pharmacies was comparable to
drugs bought in the United States.

"And the fact is," says Florida Sen. Bill Nelson, D, who introduced a bill
to stop the confiscations, "most drugs sold in Canada come from the same
companies and same assembly lines as drugs sold in America."

Nelson says he has heard from hundreds of angry constituents about the
seizures. His legislation, cosponsored with Sen. David Vitter, R-La., would
forbid Customs agents from using federal funds to seize drugs from Canada.
The measure, which passed by a 68-32 vote in July, joins two similar bills
passed by the House. AARP supports legal and safe importation of
prescription drugs from abroad.

The Nelson-Vitter bill's fate could be decided this fall by a conference
committee hammering out Homeland Security appropriations. Jon Cooper, a
health adviser to Nelson, says passage of the bills in the Senate and House
is "a good indicator that the American public wants it." But other observers
are less optimistic that the committee will act this year.

The drug industry has criticized the legislation. Ken Johnson, vice
president of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, says
it "undermines the government's ability to assure the American public that
our drug supply is safe and secure."

As drug costs have soared, some 2 million consumers began looking to Canada
for lower prices. Several states and local governments directed residents to
Canadian suppliers, led in 2003 by Illinois‹but not before a study ordered
by Gov. Rod Blagojevich, D, concluded that Canada's pricing and distribution
system was less likely than America's to foster drug counterfeiting and
low-quality products.

A one-month supply of Xenical, a weight-loss drug, costs Linda Van Gundy, of
Deer Creek, Ill., $200 in the United States but $99 from Canada. When she
got a letter from Homeland Security instead of her medicine, she called the
governor's office. She was told she was out of luck: federal law takes
precedence over state programs.

Van Gundy says she isn't sure what the government is up to. Maybe "they're
just trying to look good and Big Brotherly, helping protect us from
ourselves."

Susan Q. Stranahan is a freelance writer in Philadelphia.