Across The Border

Some months ago, Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty testified in front of a Senate panel about the artificially high price of many popular prescription drugs and the effect it was having on his state's citizens. Pawlenty, a Republican, concluded that a change was necessary in order for Americans to be able to reasonably obtain the medications they need. To that effect, he told the panel that Minnesota was investigating pharmacies in Canada that the state would then authorize as safe. Information about purchasing drugs was made available on the states' web site.

The FDA howled about safety issues, a canard trotted out whenever any official in government high or low advocates the purchase of prescription drugs from Canada. As yet, they cannot provide information on a single case where ordering the lower priced drugs from up north has resulted in injury or death. On its web site, Minnesota has included this legal and safety information.

I buy my anti-convulsive meds from one of those pharmacies. The information was provided to me by an insurance consultant who is contracted by my wife's employer. Every purchase went off without a hitch, and cost me about 20% of the going price here in the US. A further balloon popping concept is this: my drug was not developed by the American pharmaceutical industry, and is not manufactured here. It was a drug developed in France and imported to the US. In Canada, a monthly supply costs me about $167.00 plus shipping. In my home country, the richest in human history, that same drug costs me around $800.

A delicious irony appeared in a Washington Post story this morning. The DC City web site now provides a link to the Minnesota portal that leads directly to purchase information from Canadian pharmacies. The FDA is very cross with the DC government, more so because DC government is subject to more restrictions and oversight from its federal masters than is any other city government in the country. That those same federal masters are located within that city adds a bit of sting to that particular slap.

Once again, FDA has cited "safety concerns." An important note about the repeated mention of safety concerns. The FDA never uses that phrase in direct conjunction with any mention of Canadian pharmacies, only those located in "other countries." It is a deft bit of deceit, for the FDA can honestly say that drug scams have been run out of shady pharmacies located in countries all over the world, many of them incapable of enforcing much in the way of safety standards for any drugs, let alone those being transported by mail. Not once, that I can find in print, has the FDA ever directly linked its "safety concerns" with Canada, doing so only by implication.

Given how the FDA has morphed into a federal lobby for the awesomely profitable pharmaceutical industry, it comes as no surprise that they will do all they can to protect its profits.

Government in (in)action.