[Now you know what happens when the drug industry adopts music industry tactics - ed.}


CHICAGO (Reuters) - New attempts by major drugmakers to block distribution of counterfeit medicines are actually ploys to prevent reimportation of cheaper medicines into the United States, state and city officials told Reuters on Friday.



Pfizer Inc. on Friday said it will require hospitals, pharmacies and distributors to buy its prescription drugs only from wholesalers authorized by the company, following a similar move last week by Johnson & Johnson .


That will make it more difficult for Canadian distributors to stockpile surplus medicines for later export to the United States.


The drug makers said the tightened distribution is designed to stop unsafe counterfeit drugs from reaching consumers. But U.S. officials say the moves are aimed at preventing cheap Canadian drugs from entering the U.S. distribution system.


Wisconsin Governor Jim Doyle on Friday called for a probe of the drugmakers' tactics, accusing Pfizer, Wyeth, Eli Lilly & Co., GlaxoSmithKline Plc and AstraZeneca Plc of violating antitrust laws, echoing claims made by Illinois and Minnesota.


"It's clear that the drug companies and the Bush administration have been doing everything they can think of to obstruct states and cities from getting lower-priced prescription drugs from Canada," Dan Leistikow, a Doyle spokesman, told Reuters.


"Pfizer took its action to limit supplies to Canadian Internet wholesalers independently," Pfizer spokesman Paul Fitzhenry told Reuters. "Our intention in doing so is to ensure adequate supplies of medicines for Canadians and to protect the safety of consumers."


"It's baloney," Iowa health director Kevin Concannon told Reuters. "I'd say if anything the Canadian system is more tightly regulated than in the United States."


GETTING ON BANDWAGON


Springfield, Massachusetts, in July became the first U.S. locality to begin importing Canadian drugs for its employees and retirees.


Since that move, cities such as New York and Boston and the states of New Hampshire, Minnesota, Illinois, Wisconsin and Iowa have considered following suit.


"Pfizer's announcement is not about safety but about keeping drug prices artificially high by limiting supply and controlling the marketplace," Springfield Mayor Michael Albano said.


"As a trade association of 90 different competitive companies, we don't have information" on drug prices or company strategies, said Jeff Trewhitt, spokesman for the trade group that speaks for most big drugmakers.


A Johnson & Johnson spokesman last week said the issue of counterfeit drugs and not Canada was the reason for its move.


A big Canadian pharmacy group on Friday said it won't enter into contracts with Wisconsin and other states for discount drugs, noting that supplies of medicines from the five large U.S. and European drug makers are in danger of drying up amid the clampdown on Canadian distributors.


"There is no supply problem yet, but we foresee one with the pressure coming from these five companies, coupled with potential wide-scale ordering," said Dave MacKay, executive director of the Canadian International Pharmacy Association, which represents 25 Canadian concerns.


The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (news - web sites) opposes the importation of drugs, arguing it can't vouch for the safety of such medicines.




The dispute is growing after a measure to allow easier importation failed in the U.S. Congress despite soaring costs of drugs in the United States, the only developed country with no price controls on medicines.

Illinois late last month said it would limit drugs it buys from the five companies in retaliation for their Canada stance.

Pfizer's move on Friday "seems to be aimed at protecting their profits," Abby Ottenhoff, spokesman for Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, said on Friday. "We haven't seen a significant problem with counterfeit drugs from Canada."

# 2
Schering-Plough Blocked Cheaper Drugs-FTC
Thu Dec 18, 4:37 PM ET Add Business - Reuters to My Yahoo!


By Peter Kaplan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Federal Trade Commission on Thursday ruled that Schering-Plough Corp. (NYSE:SGP - news) and two other drug companies illegally kept cheaper versions of a popular heart medication off the market, reversing a judge's earlier decision.

The FTC commissioners voted to overturn a ruling last year by an FTC administrative law judge, who had dismissed antitrust charges against Schering-Plough, Upsher-Smith Laboratories and American Home Products, now called Wyeth (NYSE:WYE - news), the agency said.


The agency said Schering-Plough used settlements of patent disputes with the two other companies to lock out competition with Schering-Plough's drug K-Dur, which is commonly prescribed to heart patients.


Schering Plough said its patent settlements were legal and vowed to appeal the ruling in federal court.


The K-Dur case is one of a string of FTC investigations that focus on complex drug patent settlements and whether they stifle generic competition.


FTC officials have said the case could set key precedents and is pivotal in the agency's overall push to promote competition in the pharmaceutical industry.


The FTC has estimated the two patent agreements cost U.S. consumers more than $100 million.


Under federal law, drug makers are allowed to seek FDA (news - web sites) approval for a generic version of brand-name drugs like K-Dur before the drug's patent expires. They must certify that the patent is invalid or will not be infringed by the new generic version.


The FTC filed suit against the K-Dur settlements in March 2001. In July of last year Administrative Law Judge D. Michael Chappell ruled that the FTC had failed to prove its case.


K-Dur is a potassium chloride supplement often prescribed to patients undergoing treatment for high blood pressure. The company has a patent on K-Dur that is set to expire in 2006.


At issue in the case are patent dispute settlements Schering-Plough reached with Upsher-Smith and ESI Lederle in 1997 and 1998.


ESI Lederle was a subsidiary of American Home Products. The settlements provided for licenses that allowed it and Upsher-Smith to bring generic competitors to market in January 2004.


Under the settlements, Schering-Plough agreed to make multimillion dollar license payments to the two generic manufacturers.


Schering-Plough said the patent settlements benefited consumers because they allowed generics to enter the market two to five years before its K-Dur patent expired.


But the FTC contends they amounted to pay-offs for the companies not to compete.


In an opinion written by FTC commissioner Thomas Leary, the agency reinforced that view. It said it found that "the magnitude of the payment was not based on Schering's evaluation of the Upsher licenses."


"We therefore conclude that Schering did in fact pay Upsher for delayed entry, which, in the circumstances of this case, was an agreement that unreasonably restrains commerce," the opinion says.




In February last year American Home Products agreed to settle the FTC charges, promising to avoid making potentially anticompetitive deals with drugmakers.

Shares of Schering-Plough closed down 4 cents at $16.76 in Thursday trade on the New York Stock Exchange (news - web sites).


#3
FTC Rules Schering-Plough Deal Illegal
Fri Dec 19, 6:13 PM ET


TRENTON, N.J. - Drug maker Schering-Plough Corp. said it plans to appeal a Federal Trade Commission ruling that it illegally conspired with Wyeth and a Minnesota drug company to delay the two from introducing generic competition to one of its drugs.


Schering-Plough spokeswoman Mary-Fran Faraji said Friday the company has 60 days to file the appeal in federal court.


The trade commission's ruling, announced Thursday, overturns an FTC administrative law judge's July 2002 ruling that dismissed the charges, saying Judge D. Michael Chappell's ruling "was based on fundamental errors of law and of fact."


The case, involving agreements ending patent litigation between Schering and the other two companies, is one of several FTC has brought in recent years in an effort to stop brand-name drug companies from making deals to keep competitors from bringing cheaper generic medicines to market. In this case, FTC said the delays cost consumers more than $100 million.


"We believe (the agreements) benefited consumers because they enabled generic product to enter the market up to five years before the patent expiration," Faraji said.


However, the commission ruled that Kenilworth-based Schering-Plough, Upsher-Smith Laboratories Inc. of Maple Grove, Minn., and Madison-based Wyeth "entered into illegal agreements in 1997 and 1998 to delay the entry of lower-cost generic competition for Schering's prescription drug K-Dur 20."


K-Dur 20, a potassium chloride supplement, is used to treat patients with low blood potassium levels, which can lead to dangerous heart problems. K-Dur 20 sales peaked at $290 million in 2000, then plunged to $14 million last year, a year after generic competition was introduced.


Upsher-Smith, which also said it will appeal the FTC decision, said its agreement with Schering-Plough allowed it to bring its generic drug, Klor-Con M20, to market in 2001. K-Dur's patent runs until 2006.


"Upsher-Smith stands behind its settlement as reasonable and procompetitive," the company said in a statement.


Upsher had sought government approval in 1995 to manufacture and sell a generic version. After Schering-Plough sued Upsher for patent infringement, the companies in 1997 reached an agreement: Upsher would not sell generic potassium chloride until 2001, and Schering licensed five drugs from Upsher for $60 million.


Similarly, in 1998 Schering and Wyeth — then known as American Home Products — reached an agreement under which Wyeth would not market a generic version until January 2004; Schering agreed to license two of Wyeth's drugs and give Wyeth a total payment of $30 million.


FTC called the licensing deals a cover for payments to keep the generic drugs off the market.


The FTC's decision does not affect Wyeth, spokesman Lowell Weiner said, because it reached a settlement with FTC in February 2002 involving the agreement struck by its ESI Lederle generic drug division, which it sold last year to Baxter International.


Under that FTC settlement, Wyeth did not have to admit liability or pay any penalties, but agreed not to make similar agreements in the future. Weiner said the company thinks the new FTC ruling is erroneous.


Faraji said that if Schering-Plough were to lose its appeal, it would not face financial penalties.


"We would be specifically prohibited from entering into this kind settlement in the future," she said.


However, consumer and public interest groups are suing Schering-Plough for compensation for allegedly overcharging K-Dur users.




In trading on the New York Stock Exchange (news - web sites) Friday, Schering-Plough shares fell 3 cents to $16.73, while Wyeth shares rose 53 cents to $41.

This is a VERY important article, and I take my hat off to leflaw for this article. Consumers have becoming unwilling victims of the major pharmaceutical houses for too long. Some seniors in this country are having to decide whether to eat or buy their medicines. This, at a time that it came out that Halliburton may have overcharged the gov millions.

The late president Eisenhower warned, in his farewell speech, that the people must beware of the military industrial complex. Perhaps, he should have added the pharmaceutical houses to this list.

People's right to effective, reasonably priced medicines is being denied, by fat cats in Switzerland, Germany, and other countries, as well as in the US.

In many ways, the pharmaceutical industry are using some pages taken from the RIAA. They have tried to say that medications from Canada may be inferior products (i.e. the RIAA at one time was saying that MP3s were inferior), they appear to possibly be engaging in possible price fixing (note allegations against the RIAA to that effect), there are possible violations of the Sherman anti-trust (see allegations against the RIAA),
and yes, perhaps their own form of payola.

There have been ongoing allegations against various pharmaceutical houses that they , in effect, try to bribe (in a way), physicians to prescribe their drugs, such as offering vacation packages, lots of freebies to those who are prescribing THEIR drugs, and all kinds of special incentives. Even if it is not outright illegal, certainly it offers the semblance of impropriety, if a doctor is somehow reimbursed or rewarded, for writing script for a company's product. Clearly, this raises ethical issues about whether a patient really needed THAT specific drug, or the doc was getting these secondary gains from in effect, "pushing" that product to unwitting customers of his.

There have been several large fines given by the FTC to various large drug companies, but general, they aren't played up in the news.

Corporate greed and corruption is something that is killing our country, and I salute leflaw for bringing this important article and topic to the board.

~Code

leflaw could this also have something to do with the bill Bush just signed that the AARP backed? Just asking

Corporate Greed and corruption is killing our country IN ADDITION to our music.
(But this is the place to fight for the music!)

Shmoo, of Electric Gypsy
Support Local and Independent Music!

Leflaw, thank you for informing us. I am interested in this topic, not the least of which Bush's biggest contributor is Big Pharma. Hence, the special Midnight Riders in non-related legislation to absolve Phizer of class action damages. Undebated or subject to public scrutiny. (In another comparison to the music industry, this type of tactic is Mitch Glazier's specialty at RIAA.)

Those of you who see your parents getting older will empathize with the alarming cost of medicine. My dad is getting a shot of Procrit every week that costs $1800. I had offered to get on the internet to price-comparison cheaper drugs. But my parents are afraid of getting poisoned. Try to explain then why some sort of government regulation is neccessary to protect the public.

My father has a rare blood disease, with no known cause, except exposure to benzine. This could come in ground table water, but usually affects someone who works in a barbeque restaurant. My dad hates lawyers and liberals. My hair stood up the other day, when he was contemptous of a class action offer from the users of dental stickum exposed to benzine. He has had dental plates for 25 years.

The internet resources of a firm like Leflaw help people get information on deadly products, and corporate/government practices which kill people in a cruel way in the work environment. Not the least, firefighters at Ground Zero or military personnel. (Dow Chemical's worst War Crime was NOT napalm, which had triggered such huge public response. It was Agent Orange.)

Try to explain why Bush & Company is pushing an all-out assault to establish tort deform, legislate limits for damages awards, and 24/7 propaganda attacking the Trial Lawyers Association and John Edwards. All to benefit doctors and insurance companies.

I have attempted to discuss with my parents "why" I need to live in Canada or Finland in order to receive minimal health benefits."EVERY COUNTRY" in the world has a safety net for its citizens, except Amerika. My father was a good productive citizen, and his lifelong career (and military service in WWII) provided him with a comfortable retirement. The Amerikan Way has worked for him, and I am grateful. But it won't exist for us younger folks.

Look at Schwarzenegger assuming office. His first act in office is to declare an emergency and in the process he guts education and social programs. The neo-conservative agenda is to create a permanent war economy in this country, bleed all our money to Bechtel, Halliburton, and Brown & Root. The goal is to bankrupt Medi-Cal and Social Security.

Is this why my father, and grandfathers and every uncle on both sides of my family fought in the World Wars? To hand over the welfare of their children to corporate lapdogs and chickenhawks Cheney, Wolfowiz, Perle, Rove and Bush, all of whom ducked military service?

Isn't it Ironic that Pfizer just laid off a bunch of people. http://www.mlive.com/news/kzgazette/index.ssf?/base/news-8/1071851037326640.xml
So....not only are they screwing over the consumer, but now their own employee's....all in the name of corporate greed. Our government....ie..our members of congress....seem to have forgotten why this country was started in the first place. We didn't want to be ruled over as peasants by a king or queen, but now we have a new evil basically doing the same thing. They are called corporations. Seems it is time to clean house in congress and get ordinary people back in office that truly work for the people....not the big, filthy rich corporations. Perhaps some day a nation wide boycott of everything for a week will bring these deadbeats to their senses. They want to use supply and demand and safety excuses....well we can give it to them....just not buy anything. If something is absolutely needed, patronize small hometown businesses. What will the large corporations do then? Sue us all? I believe the downfall of this country is going to be because of corporate greed.

Double ditto on Wal Mart. We have to take serious individual responsibility not to patronize Wal Mart. In this small town, for my whole life, I knew the drugstore owner's family and hardware store and meat market. It is not possible to find Apple Mac proudcts in this town, and I am always in need of A/V cords, and ink carts, CD blanks, DVD's etc

It's a bitch to drive across town to avoid WalMart in my nighborhood, and like anyone esle, I feel guilty when I duck in, buy some shit, and say "Next time I won't come here."

Wal Mart is singlehandedly driving up hospital and SOCIAL costs. With the kind of clout they wield, they are China's fifth biggest customer. They refuse to allow union talk, and refuse to offer employee insurance. The worst thing of all, is pressure for companies to price-cut to match slave products from the Third World.

How is this relevent to our issues at Dmusic?

WalMart is insisting on censoring lyrics for their download music service!!! Don't underestimate the importance of this. They already have proved their agenda with magazine and album covers. WalMart is butal and their policies contradict everything America stands for.

Let's cause a world of hurt for Wal Mart this Christmas.

"WalMart is insisting on censoring lyrics for their download music service"

This is no surprise. Talk about neo-conservatism.

They have been banning albums or demanding alternate versions with lyrics they like better. I'm actually surprised that Sheryl Crow is allowing her music to be sold at WalMart, after the way they treated her before.

But of course, Sheryl doesn't have any control over how her music is sold.

Traditionally when the price of a product goes up the deamand for the product goes down. Firms are inticed to operate at a level where MR=MC. Often this requires raising the price and artificially decreasing the demand for the product. This is exceptable practice with most products and it really does operate efficiently. But what happens when the demand does not go down? Price goes up. Demand stays the same. Price goes up more. Demand continues to stay the same as price is justifiably increased again. Eventually demand will go down because people do have to put a price on how much they can spend on drugs. Even when it means their lives. But ofcourse the corps must put a cap on this affect otherwise it would not last long. So they don't get too greedy. But they do get greedy. And we get insurance so we can still afford our drugs. But that just enables the drug companies to charge more without loosing demand. We still pay for it just in other ways. And the prices continue to rise. Something needs to change or we are gonna break.

I have to weigh in on Wal*Mart, or Wally World as some have begun to call it. I have heard many present Wal*Mart employees saying "This would never happy if Mr. Sam (Sam Walton) was still alive", or "Things have changed since Mr. Sam died." It's clear what they mean, both in the way they look while saying it, and the way the words are said. There's a sadness, a disgust, a pessimism. And, in my area, all Super Wal*Marts, have 9 "automated checkouts"...meaning, 9 cashiers less are needed (well, maybe 7, since you have one person to monior 4 or 5 automated checkouts).

The nation is in a catch 22 (thanks to Joseph Heller for that phrase). Outsourcing of jobs has caused layoffs, layoffs less money spent, less money spent, lower incomes, lower incomes, greater demand for lower prices, lower prices mean buying at the cheapest price...and that means third world sweat shops producing these goods...

Round and round we go. It's a downward spiral we are involved in. We used to be an agricultural nation, then industrial, then service, and now, we're consumers...a nation of overweight, worried consumers, being fed an artificial diet of empty calories, manufatured and managed news, and slowly losing our rights amid a slew of confusing and overly written laws.

Lest we stay blind to the dangers to our freedoms, let's look at this article:
http://www.rense.com/general44/atttk.htm
In a December issue of Cigar Afficianado, we find General Tommy Franks making some very disturbing comments...
"Discussing the hypothetical dangers posed to the U.S. in the wake of Sept. 11, Franks said that "the worst thing that could happen" is if terrorists acquire and then use a biological, chemical or nuclear weapon that inflicts heavy casualties.

If that happens, Franks said, "... the Western world, the free world, loses what it cherishes most, and that is freedom and liberty we've seen for a couple of hundred years in this grand experiment that we call democracy."

Franks then offered "in a practical sense" what he thinks would happen in the aftermath of such an attack.

"It means the potential of a weapon of mass destruction and a terrorist, massive, casualty-producing event somewhere in the Western world - it may be in the United States of America - that causes our population to question our own Constitution and to begin to militarize our country in order to avoid a repeat of another mass, casualty-producing event. Which in fact, then begins to unravel the fabric of our Constitution. Two steps, very, very important." "

If this weren't so scary, it might be comical if you remember the comments of General Buck Turgidson in the bizarre movie, Dr. Strangelove. That movie,
has an apocalyptic themeabout how technology had gone haywire and had dominated humanity...much like today.

The Cigar Afficianado interview had an eerie similar ring to the words from Dr. Strangelove of General Buck Turgidson.

From

we read the following :
"Turgidson presents the President with an impossible choice between the lesser of two evils, a reinforced Ripper attack, or a non-reinforced Ripper attack:


Mr. President, we are rapidly approaching a moment of truth...Now, truth is not always a pleasant thing, but it is necessary now to make a choice, to choose between two admittedly regrettable, but nevertheless, distinguishable post-war environments. One, where you got 20 million people killed, and the other where you got 150 million people killed.
In the face of universal destruction and "mass murder," General Turgidson, who believes that conquest in war is equated to sexual defeat, rants about the tremendous 'overkill' potential of the nuclear offensive. He also minimizes the Soviet retaliatory counter-attack casualty statistics:

Mr. President, I'm not saying we wouldn't get our hair mussed, but I do say no more than ten to twenty million killed, tops, uh, depending on the breaks."
(http://www.filmsite.org/drst2.html)

And, when talking about the existence of a "Doomsday Machine", Turgidson says
dreamily:

"Gee, I wish we had one of them Doomsday Machines, Stainsey."

In a Wag the Dog scenario, much of what seems to actually be happening, appears to be a hybrid of 1984, Brave New World, and Dr. Strangelove, pieced together by a madman.

type...should be "This would never happen..." NOT this would never happy...

"Round and round we go. It's a downward spiral we are involved in. We used to be an agricultural nation, then industrial, then service, and now, we're consumers...a nation of overweight, worried consumers, being fed an artificial diet of empty calories, manufatured and managed news, and slowly losing our rights amid a slew of confusing and overly written laws."

Nicely put.

I live in Wisconsin, and they do actually have bus trips for the elderly... to Canada, to buy thier drugs... it's been in the newspaper here a few times that I've personally seen.

The idea that we could lose our freedom in exchange for a false sense of safety is ridiculous. So what if we have a large scale terrorist attack. 10,000 to 1,000,000 die or something awful like that. Should we act like little pussies and crawl under a rock. News flash, we are all going to die anyway. The only thing that matters is living free with some semblence of honor and dignity.

.. soooo well said, Code! Problem is, Wal-Mart is only the most efficient example of the predatory capatilism we all live in and support. Been that way in this country since day one, when the local native americans' generosity was exploited for profit! To boycott Walmart.. and malls, for that matter, would take a significant lifestyle change for us all. We are so spoiled.. my god, we wipe our arses with fresh toilet paper.. knowwhadImean?? We need to examine ourselves to see if we can change the capatilist system for the good of more people.. That means more than laughing at Michael Moore's latest movies..

This article on Walmart is very disturbing.

The Wal-Mart You Don't Know

The giant retailer's low prices often come with a high cost. Wal-Mart's relentless pressure can crush the companies it does business with and force them to send jobs overseas. Are we shopping our way straight to the unemployment line?

http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/77/walmart.html

walmart has done some fucked up shit in the past... like paying Mexican immigrants less than minimum wage per hour. and then there was the time when walmart collected insurance on their dead employees.

Thanks for the kind words JazzMary

Mroop---much thanks for that link....very disturbing and well crafted article! Everyone in the US should read it.

Sounds like Wal*Mart is putting the USA
"in a pickle"

from the article...
"Wal-Mart no longer has any real rivals. It does more business than Target, Sears, Kmart, J.C. Penney, Safeway, and Kroger combined. "Clearly," says Edward Fox, head of Southern Methodist University's J.C. Penney Center for Retailing Excellence, "Wal-Mart is more powerful than any retailer has ever been." It is, in fact, so big and so furtively powerful as to have become an entirely different order of corporate being."

Do you guys know why drugs are cheaper here (in Canada) than in the U.S.A.? Or do you just assume it has something to do with corporate greed and smugly bask in the warmth of your own righteousness?

The Canadian government and the American pharm companies struck an agreement that allowed the drug companies to market and sell their drugs here under the original brand names, in exchange, the drug manufacturers agreed not to pass on R&D costs to Canadian consumers.

Which means that us lucky Canadians get our drugs for less than they cost to make,(when you factor in research and development investment which is huge).

As for the safety of Canadian drugs, they usually come from America anyway, or, they come from the same place that Americans get theirs, so they are as safe or safer than American drugs.

But, if everyone started getting their drugs at the prices that Canadians pay, the drug companies would promptly go out of business and we would have nobody making new drugs, I'm sure the seniors would love that.

If Canadians were made to pay for their drugs what Americans pay, especially after adjusting for dollar value, our wonderful socialized health care system would probably collapse thanks to the massive jump in costs which our already over-taxed population could not sustain.

I'm not saying that I prefer the American healthcare system, but our system is not the bowl of cherries that some of you think it is.

Our health care system is under-funded, under-staffed, and technologically behind the U.S. system.

Many of our health care professionals, especially the talented ones, move to the south for better money and less taxes. Some of them are recruited right out of medical school.

Waiting lists have become insanely long, forcing many Canadians to fly to America where they can be treated promptly by better doctors,(for a fee of course).

Which brings up the final point, the Canadian health care system is anything but equitable. Politicians, professional atheletes, police/firemen, and those on workers compensation usually get treated immediately while the rest of the shmoes have to wait 6 months just to get an MRI to tell them what's wrong with them.

And the rich folks bypass the whole mess and fly somewhere else,(usually the U.S.) to get treated when they have to.

But you all should still move to Canada, maybe the extra tax revenue will help us buy a new tank, one that wasn't used in the Korean war.

Many people here in Arizona go down to Mexico to buy their medications and even flu shots right now. Who knows what the hell they are getting.

A friend of mine went to Mexico and he literally went to the pharmacy, told them that he needed oxycontin for his "pain", haha, yeah right... and they were like here ya go, 6 dollars please, have a nice day.. I don't agree with making painkillers over the counter, but if you can go down there and pay literally only a quarter of what it would cost here, or less, for any medication why does it cost so much here? In the states you have to pay 70 dollars just to get the prescription from the doctor, then you have to pay about 100 dolars or more for the actual medication.. Why is it that the drugs that were invented here cost only a small fraction of what they cost in countries like mexico and india?

One word. Greed.

I know a way I can get cheap medication from Canada. Move there. You know that the rail roads like Union Pacific, and CSX are suing the model railroad makers like Lionel, MTH and Bachman for trademark infringment? I swear if I hear of one more company suing one more person or company for something so stupid I'm outta here and Canada will be my new home.

Hey Litheon, let me be the first to welome you to our frigid quasi-socialist paradise, yes your drugs will be cheaper, so will a lot of things.

Good luck finding a decent doctor though, and the higher income taxes will probably negate the money you save on drugs, not to mention the sky high heating costs in the winter.

You would be better off staying where you are and somehow getting onto a good health insurance plan, trust me.

Justin4, as I tried to explain earlier, the reason Americans pay more for drugs is that the drug companies are not allowed to pass on their R&D costs to consumers outside of the U.S., therefore, American consumers have to bear the brunt of that cost themselves.

You are sort of victims of your own ingenuity, given that most new drugs are invented by American companies.

Drugs cost billions of dollars to research and develop, BILLIONS!
A potential drug is developed at great expense, then it spends about a decade in testing and regulatory limbo, and only a few drugs make it past that stage, the drugs that do make it onto the market have to provide the drug companies with the revenue to pay for the wasted effort on the ones that didn't.

It's not just the price of manufacturing the pills.

Also, if one of these new drugs ends up showing unforseen side-effects later on, like thalidomide, the company that manufactured it will have millions of dollars in lawsuits to contend with.

I'm fully aware that drugs are expensive, especially in America, but any new technology is expensive when it first comes out.

It isn't until the company recovers the R&D expense that they can start lowering the price of the product, whether it's computer technology or drug technology or whatever.

And no, fuckers, I don't work for a drug company.

The question of Canada pops up more and more Shoshidge, and I for one appreciate hearing the details. I could say the same for Amsterdam or Finland. Here's hoping these countries adapt a sympathy (and political asylum) for USA expats. I would hope the reuqirements for changing citizenship (four years) could be lightened in view of the American national emergency.

The shoe that pinches (esp. an artist) is religious evangelism taking over your home town. And seeing your father's oldest friends become redneck reactionaries. You have to understand the power of televison to frame the news. It is mind-boggling that anyone would even listen to Fox TV spewing hate, but ordinary people frame their opinions that way.

And it's effective. A non-stop campaign of fear and terrorism alerts. Any indepenedent-thought you maintain earns you the label of "Bush-hater."

Every time a Congressional panel gets too close to the heart and insists on disclosures, the White House trots out Orange Alerts and travel advisories. Who would blame anyone for wanting to escape the non-stop tension?