According to a
report by Giuliani Partners for the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (
PhRMA), you're either with the terrorists, or you're against American grannies buying cheap drugs in Canada:
According to Giuliani, opening U.S. borders to prescription drugs could provide an unfortunate opportunity for terrorists.
"Several credible sources have identified links between counterfeit goods, including pharmaceuticals, and organized criminals and terrorist groups," he said. "It is not difficult to imagine a scenario in which terrorist groups could use this system to either finance operations or, worse, as a vehicle of attack."
More below the fold
It seems the pharmaceutical trade group, terrorized by the prospect of Americans buying their drugs through regulated markets with price caps in place, needed a new angle with which to seal off our borders. Think of them as the Minutemen of the North, fighting trim in their three-piece suits and armed not with rifles but legions of lobbyists and think tanks. Trouble is, with many elderly and low-income people choosing between their lunch and their Lipitor, people haven't been buying their old arguments, namely that:
· Reimportation would hurt profits, and in doing so, hurt research and development spending. So if you won't play by our rules and pay as much as six times what they do in Canada, we'll just take our beakers and go home! No new drugs for you!
· Reimportation is just like those sketchy emails you get with subheads reading "VaLL:UM CiALiS V-AGRA!" It's just not safe!
Except it wouldn't and it isn't. For starters, if drug companies had to cut prices, shrink their sales forces and say "No" to analysts expecting 20% increases in profits every year, would they just shrivel up and stop making new drugs? Naw. They're businesses. They'd adapt to their new environment and figure out how to make a buck. Next question.
Is reimportation safe? Well, we're talking about drugs made by the same companies and distributed through the pharmacies and regulatory systems of other wealthy countries. But the FDA says it would be prohibitively expensive to allow reimportation, because they'd have to reproduce what they do in the U.S. in every country that we imported from. Couldn't they just link up our regulatory system to, say, those of Canada and the E.U.? Uh-oh. Time to hitch this puppy to the terror train.
First they conflated reimportation of regulated drugs from other countries with wholly unregulated and genuinely scary drug sales over the Internets. That didn't cut it, so here's "Swamp Rot" Billy to spike your Zocor with some Zarqawi:
Billy Tauzin, president and CEO of PhRMA said, "We understand that some Americans are looking for cheaper drugs from abroad, but this report underscores the dangers of doing so. We have several safe and legal options for those looking for ways to reduce their prescription drug costs, including the Partnership for Prescription Assistance. We encourage all Americans to turn to these safe and credible methods before putting their health at risk buying unregulated drugs from a Web site or another country."
Alas, no word on Bernie Kerik's role in all this. Perhaps he was selflessly sampling the Al Qaeda Viagra from Soviet Canuckistan during his tryst with Judith Regan at the Motel 911?