| Dr. Jai Maharaj 2004-10-11, 10:08 pm |
| THE REVOLT AGAINST BIG PHARMA
Forwarded message from "Michael Givel" <mgivel@earthlink.net>
[ Subject: The Revolt Against Big Pharma
[ From: "Michael Givel" <mgivel@earthlink.net>
[ NNTP-Posting-Host: 128.206.49.147
[ Date: 11 Oct 2004 08:54:41 -0500
The Revolt Against Big Pharma
By Katrina vanden Heuvel
The Nation
October 8, 2004
In recent months, we've seen a full-scale revolt over
the skyrocketing costs of prescription drugs in this
country.
Two weeks ago, a high-level dissident executive from
Pfizer, the world's largest drugmaker, denounced the
pharmaceutical industry for resisting legislation
that would allow imports of low-cost prescription
drugs from Canada and other countries. Just days
later, the City Council of Montgomery County,
Maryland, ironically the home of the FDA, added its
name to a long list of cities and states that have
defied federal law and passed legislation permitting
citizens to buy medications in Canada. Moreover,
eighteen state attorneys general have written the
Bush Administration urging passage of legislation
allowing prescription drugs to be imported.
"Stopping good importation bills has a high, high
cost not just in money, but in American lives," Dr.
Peter Rost, the dissident Pfizer exec, declared at a
rally on Capitol Hill in support of legislation that
allow imports. "Every day we delay, Americans die
because they cannot afford life-saving drugs."
(Thomas Ryan, the CEO of the drugstore conglomerate
CVS, made a similar concession in May.)
In the veep debate, it was good to hear John Edwards
blast the Administration for blocking the importation
of drugs from Canada and tell Amercians--"We're not
going to allow it." Sen. John Kerry has talked about
prescription drug prices as well, but too often, in
this campaign, the importation issue has been shoved
under the rug. This, then, is a stealth issue whose
time has come. An anti-corporate underground railroad
has taken center stage in the legal vacuum, operating
in the best tradition of direct action protest.
Consumer advocates of all ages are organizing bus
trips to Canada where US citizens can purchase
cheaper drugs. (Savings run as high as 50 percent;
prozac--the popular anti-depressant--costs $3.34 a
pill in the US and $1.54 a pill in Canada, to cite
one example.)
In St. Paul, Minnesota, the protesters are senior
citizens who gather in parking lots, where they board
buses so they can journey over eight hours to reach
Winnipeg. (These trips are funded in part by Sen.
Mark Dayton--a millionaire who donates his entire
Congressional salary to fund the bus trips.) The trip
takes about two days.
This rebellion is being joined by a bipartisan
coalition of governors, citizens and state officials
who are creating websites linking consumers to
Canadian pharmacies. New Hampshire, for instance,
includes a link to Canadadrugs.com on its official
state website. Even the Republican Governor Craig
Benson recommends Canadadrugs.com, which is regulated
by the Canadian government. So far, the FDA-- faced
with a drumbeat of pressure from supporters of
importation--has not acted to shut the sites down.
This movement is spreading like wildfire across the
country. Just a few days ago, Illinois and Wisconsin
launched "I-Saverk"--the nation's first state-
sponsored program to help residents buy cheaper
prescription drugs from both Europe and Canada. And
some 24 states are considering legislation that would
permit importation of drugs from Canada or elsewhere,
while Connecticut, West Virginia and Vermont are
among several states that have already enacted pro-
importation laws.
We may be looking at a nationwide insurrection.
Currently, one to two million Americans are defying
federal law by using the Internet to purchase drugs
from Canadian pharmacies. And, according to one
Kaiser Family Foundation and Harvard University
School of Public Health poll, approximately 80
percent of Americans support importing RX drugs from
Canada. Who can blame them? In 2002, Americans paid
67 percent more than Canadians for patented drug
products, and medicines will cost US consumers an
estimated $210 billion in 2004. The groundswell is so
strong that Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy
Thomson conceded in May that Congress will inevitably
have to yield.
Much of the blame for the lack of action at the
federal level can be pinned on Pharma, the
pharmaceutical lobby, which values protecting profits
above lives, and which is playing hard-ball in hopes
of beating back an importation law. After Rost spoke
out, Pfizer launched an investigation into his
political activities, which seven members of
Congress--including Dan Burton, the Indiana
Republican-- criticized as "clearly intended to
intimidate Dr. Rost."
The Bush Administration and Republican leaders in
Congress are also at fault. Recipients of more than
$40 million in drug and insurance industry
contributions since 2000, they have refused support
for any re-importation proposal. Bush's most recent
Medicare package failed to address drug prices and
strictly prohibited Medicare from negotiating the
lowest, best possible drug prices for Medicare
beneficiaries.
Another Republican star recently showed himself to be
in the pocket of the drug companies: Arnold
Schwarzenegger vetoed several bills which would have
allowed importation of drugs from Canada as well as
the creation of a website highlighting Canadian
pharmacies.
The Republicans have their talking points: Importing
medicines from Canada, they argue, will squeeze
industry profits and undermine private-sector
research and development. But as Marcia Angell, the
author of the recently-published "The Truth About the
Drug Companies" and former editor-in-chief of the New
England Journal of Medicine, has pointed out, the
majority of innovation nowadays is coming from the
National Institutes of Health, small biotechnology
companies, and taxpayer- funded research in the
universities, not from the laboratories of
pharmaceutical giants.
Imports, the GOP-Pharma alliance falsely claims, are
also hazardous to people's health. Pharma warned
Americans "that many such drugs will be unapproved,
adulterated, contaminated or counterfeit." The mother
of all hypocrites is Senate Majority Leader and
medical doctor Bill Frist, who has refused to allow
the Senate to vote on re-importation legislation
because, as one of his flaks piously put it, 'he
won't put the American people in jeopardy."
It's a bogus argument: Both the FDA and the Canadian
government oversee much of Canada's prescription drug
supply, and "if anything, drugs obtained from Canada
are likely to be safer, since they must meet the
standards of both countries," said Angell.
Montgomery, Ala., has a program allowing drug re-
importations from Canada, and residents have "had
absolutely no complaints or problems associated with
the program," said John Carnell, the city's risk
manager.
While the US Senate under GOP leadership has promised
to find the time to vote on a flag-burning Amendment
to the Constitution, thousands of senior citizens are
forced to choose between buying food and medicine.
They suffer, but not in silence.
It doesn't have to be this way. The government could
easily take steps to regulate prescription drug
prices, including empowering Medicare to leverage its
bargaining power to negotiate drug prices AND
permiting the re-importation of prescription drugs
from Canada. If Republicans in Congress and the White
House don't pass such legislation, then senior
citizens should rise up and throw Pharma-funded
politicians out of office.
The trip to the pharmacy should take ten minutes, not
two days.
http://www.thenation.com/edcut/inde...?bid=7&pid=1889
End of forwarded message from "Michael Givel" <mgivel@earthlink.net>
Jai Maharaj
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The terrorist mission of Jesus stated in the Christian bible:
"Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not so send
peace, but a sword.
"For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the
daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in
law.
"And a man's foes shall be they of his own household.
- Matthew 10:34-36.
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