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Schweitzer's drug-importation scheme a bad idea
Schweitzer's drug-importation scheme a bad idea
Belgrade News
By Peter J. Pitts
April 16, 2010
According to a report in the Helena Independent Record, Gov. Brian Schweitzer, who last month asked the federal government to approve a "waiver" so Montana could import prescription drugs at lower cost for statefunded health plans, has not submitted any of the usual documentation that accompanies a waiver request.
Instead, the governor wrote only a letter to U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, asking that her agency grant Montana a "Medicaid waiver" allowing importation of lower-cost drugs from Canada.
"We have to work through the secretary's office," says Anna Whiting Sorrell, director of the state Department of Public Health and Human Services. "There is not another state that has requested this. We think the governor is forging a new path."
News must travel slowly in Montana. There have been numerous requests for such waivers. And they've all been denied -- for good reason. Let's look at the record.
In Minnesota, state officials observed Canadian Internet pharmacies engaging in dangerous practices.
One pharmacy had its pharmacists check 100 new prescriptions or 300 refill prescriptions per hour, a volume so high that there is no way to assure safety.
One pharmacy failed to label its products and several others failed to send any patient drug information to patients receiving prescription drugs.
Drugs requiring refrigeration were being shipped un-refrigerated with no evidence that the products would remain stable.
One pharmacy had no policy in place for drug recalls. Representatives of the pharmacy allegedly said that the patient could contact the pharmacy about a recall "if they wished."
The FDA launched an investigation, confiscating thousands of drug shipments headed for the United States. Some of them were headed for Minnesotans who ordered them over the state's Web site.
When opened, nearly half claimed to be of Canadian origin, but "85 percent of them were from 27 other countries including Iran, Ecuador and China." And 30 of them were counterfeit.
One Minnesota resident discovered that one of his "Canadian" drugs came from Greece, and another came from Vanuatu, a small island in the South Pacific. "I never heard of the place," he said.
According to its latest statistics, Minnesota RxConnect fills about 138 prescriptions a month. That's for the whole state, despite a population of over 5,167,101.
Wisconsin also has an importation program, modeled on the one in Minnesota. It too hawks its promise and hides its dangers. All of the legalese buries the fact that the state doesn't accept any responsibility for the safety or effectiveness of any medicines bought on the state's Web site .
For example, the state won't even guarantee that the drugs ordered are what the customer will receive. Not only that, but the state also says that it will not accept any legal responsibility or liability should any of the drugs cause a problem. The governor is hiding the fact that his Web site puts any user into a dangerous "buyer beware" situation. In
Illinois, despite Wrong-Way Rod Blagojevich's swagger over his "I-Save-RX" program, just 3,689 state residents have used the program over its 19 months of operation. That's just 0.02 percent of the population.
And then, of course, there are those pesky safety issues.
Attention Gov. Schweitzer: The drugs being sent to U.S. customers from Canadian Internet pharmacies are not "the same drugs Canadians get." That bit of rhetoric is just plain wrong.
Canadian internet pharmacies -- by their own admission -- are sourcing their drugs from the European Union. And while they may say their drugs come from the United Kingdom, let's not conveniently forget that 20 percent of all the medicines sold in the UK are parallel imported from other nations in the EU -- like Spain, Greece, Portugal and Lithuania.
Last month Gov. Schweitzer said Montana could buy some of the drugs directly from wholesalers in Canada or place the orders and have them delivered to pharmacies around the state, for purchase by people covered by publicly funded health plans.
We refer the governor to Bartlett's Familiar Quotations: "Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it."
Montana's unofficial slogan is "The Last Best Place." Maybe so. But not for drug importation.
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