Welcome to Ellis Toussier-Ades Bigio-Antebi's This Is a Dangerous Practice ? My comment follows the text High Drug Prices Spur Buying in Mexico, Forum Told EUNICE MOSCOSO c.1999 Cox News Service WASHINGTON - Americans pay higher prices for prescription drugs than consumers in any other country, a panel of experts said recently. "Something is broken in this market," said Stephen Schondelmeyer, associate dean of the College of Pharmacy at the University of Minnesota. Schondelmeyer and other pharmacy experts told a congressional forum that pharmaceutical companies make the highest profits of any business in the U.S. - about 16 cents of each dollar paid by the consumer. The average Fortune 500 company makes about five cents per dollar profit, and the gap between them and pharmaceutical companies "has been getting wider over the last decade," Schondelmeyer said. The expense of prescription drugs and the stress and hardship it causes senior citizens has been a focus for Rep. Jim Turner, D-Texas, one of three members of Congress who organized the meeting. Turner has been trying to make prescription drugs available to Medicare beneficiaries at substantially reduced prices. As part of a congressional task force on the issue, Turner commissioned a study that found that some senior citizens in his district are paying twice as much as drug companies charge large customers, such as health maintenance organizations. These images from: Prescription Drug Pricing in Vermont At the meeting, Turner spoke of a growing problem in Texas, where cash-strapped senior citizens resort to buying prescription drugs in Mexico, and not only in the border towns. "I ran into a fellow the other day in my East Texas district who says that he's got a buddy that flies him down into the interior of Mexico, and they get a better price down there, he said. ====MY COMMENT: Please read that again. The "problem" is not that cash-strapped senior citizens are buying prescription drugs in Mexico... That is the solution... The "problem" is that they resort to buying prescription drugs in Mexico, because they cannot afford to buy them in Texas, or in the rest of the United States! ===== Buying drugs in Mexico is a dangerous practice, since drugs sold in Mexico are not approved by the Federal Food and Drug Administration and are not sold by trained pharmacists who can answer questions or give advice, said Marvin Shepherd, director of the Center for Pharmacoeconomic Studies at the University of Texas. ====MY COMMENT: Oh, really? Many medicines sold in Mexico are made in the U.S.A.! Drugs manufactured by major foreign Pharmaceutical companies in Mexico are identical in Mexico as the same medicine made by the same pharmaceutical company in the United States or Europe. Growth Hormone (eg, Humatrope) and many medicines are made in the United States and sold in Mexico at half the price by the same pharmaceutical company that sells them for more in the United States. Some drugs manufactured in Mexico don't need to pass F.D.A. approval, because the F.D.A. only approves drugs in the United States, not in other countries, but every drug or medicine sold in Mexico has to pass the strict approval process of the Mexican Government Salubridad, which is just as strict as the American F.D.A. And every pharmacy that sells certain medicines has to have a trained pharmacist responsible. The truth is: there is a Law in the United States that only the pharmaceutical company that charges higher prices in the United States can re-import its own medicine. This allows them to have two markets, one at a high price in the United States, and one at a low price in foreign countries, without competing with themselves. The F.D.A. and Customs, unwittingly or wittingly, act as the personal police force of the pharmaceutical companies to try to enforce this injustice on Americans. ==== "It's like buying a Hershey bar," he said. ====MY COMMENT: This man saw too many Hollywood movies... It is true that Hershey bars are sold without prescription, and do not require trained pharmacists to be present. But medicines such as narcotics and mind altering drugs are sold in Mexico under strict control. It is true that many medicines sold in Mexico do not require a doctor's prescription, and the same medicine is sold in the U.S. only with a doctor's prescription. But this does not mean that buying that medicine in Mexico is dangerous and buying it in the United States is safe. If the FDA would require that milk can only be sold with a doctor's prescription, and in Mexico it can be sold without a doctor's prescription, you would have less milk sold in the U.S. and at a greater cost to the consumer, but this would not necessarily make drinking milk safer in the U.S. And if you think my example is wrong, please note that thousands of medicines require prescriptions in the U.S. and not in Mexico, and that for more than a hundred years there has not been any national health crisis in Mexico caused by millions of people that have been able to buy these thousands of medicines without a prescription, and at a huge savings in price. ===== Nevertheless, he said, the prescription drug business in Mexico is thriving. One out of four people who cross the border comes back with prescription drugs, he said. Nobody is forcing them to come to Mexico to buy medicines... they come because they are less expensive. In Nuevo Laredo, pharmacies and tequila drive the economy, Shepherd said. =====MY COMMENT Yes... and in Mexico we all ride on donkeys and have our siesta under a cactus every day... ===== Although most people who buy prescription drugs in Mexico are under 35 and buy drugs such as Valium and Rohypnol to sell in large cities around the United States for recreational purposes, there is still a population of seniors who cross the border because they simply can't afford to pay U.S. prices for medicine, he said. ====MY COMMENT: Aha! Now we get to the real problem... Read that again: "they simply can't afford to pay U.S. prices for medicine"... U.S. pharmacies are losing this business!!! ==== The appeal of the Mexican market can also be seen on Internet pages. One page offers an e-mail list of Mexican pharmacies offering medicines for 80 percent less than at U.S. pharmacies - and without a prescription. ===MY COMMENT: Oh, so medicines in Mexico cost up to 80 percent less than U.S. pharmacies... and without a prescription, mind you! The real problem is for U.S. pharmacies to have to admit that Mexican pharmacies are selling the identical medicine for 80% less, (100 vs. 20) or put another way, that they are selling it in the United States at (20 x 5) 500% what it costs in Mexico! Ohhh, this is really "dangerous!" Everybody please buy medicines in the U.S.A. and avoid this "dangerous practice!" Perhaps a complaint can be lodged with N.A.F.T.A. (North American Free Trade Agreement) so that those darn Mexican pharmacies would agree to raise their prices 500% so there could be "fair competition" because obviously... this is a problem... and dangerous, too... for American pharmacies! Read this again: "Americans pay higher prices for prescription drugs than consumers in any other country, a panel of experts said recently." "Schondelmeyer and other pharmacy experts told a congressional forum that pharmaceutical companies make the highest profits of any business in the U.S. - about 16 cents of each dollar paid by the consumer. " "There is still a population of seniors who cross the border because they simply can't afford to pay U.S. prices for medicine, he said." "The appeal of the Mexican market can also be seen on Internet pages. One page offers an e-mail list of Mexican pharmacies offering medicines for 80 percent less than at U.S. pharmacies - and without a prescription." ===MY COMMENT: The Defense rests with the statements the panel of experts and of Schondelmeyer, as told to the Congressional forum... Ellis Toussier