Tag: PhARMA

What would a President Biden do about drug prices?
The latest news is that the pharmaceutical industry is targeting its 2020 campaign contributions at Vice President Biden, rather than President Trump. Kaiser Health News reports a reversal in Pharma’s standard way of operating. The prescription drug companies want to make sure that a Biden presidency would not mean government regulation of drug prices. What would a President Biden do about drug prices?

The US House of Representatives has passed HR3, which would lower drug prices for scores of the most popular drugs to levels near those paid in other wealthy countries over the next ten years. Pharma would have to negotiate with the Department of Health and Human Services regarding prices for these drugs. Everyone in the country would benefit. But, the Senate has not considered it.

Vice-President Biden says he plans to eliminate the barrier that prevents Medicare from using its leverage to negotiate drug prices. While Biden recognizes that everyone in the US needs lower drug prices, his campaign web site does not say that everyone in the nation will benefit from these prices, nor is it clear that these prices will be significantly lower, since he does not say that they will be benchmarked to prices paid in other countries.

Biden proposes establishing a new arm of the US Department of Health and Human Services to assess the value of new specialty drugs. This agency would establish a fair price for these drugs. They would base the price on international pricing, if the drug is already available in other countries. Vice President Biden also proposes allowing private health insurers in the state exchanges, and the individual market writ large, to benefit from the prescription drug prices established at HHS.

In addition, the Vice President would impose a limit on the amount pharmaceutical companies can increase the price of their brand-name and biotech drugs to the rate of inflation. This limit would also apply to “abusively priced” generics. The Vice President does not define abusively priced.

And, the Vice President would allow drug importation from other countries where drugs are determined to be safe. PharmacyChecker’s website lists drug prices from verified pharmacies in other countries. While this proposal would not help as many people as need affordable drugs, it forces Pharma to recognize that the international market will drive down drug prices in this country. Better still would be if private health insurers were required to reimburse members for drugs they purchase abroad.

Finally, Biden proposes improving the supply of generic drugs and eliminating the tax deductions pharmaceutical companies traditionally receive on their advertising spending.

It’s no wonder that Pharma and its allies in the health products industry have given Biden’s campaign more than $5.9 million, according to Open Secrets. Kaiser Health News reports that the Biden campaign has received three times more in campaign contributions from Pharma and its allies than President Trump. If Biden becomes President, the drug companies will need his ear to keep him and Congress from turning his drug pricing proposals into law.

Still, Pharma is targeting the majority of its Congressional campaign contributions to Republicans. Its how it tries to ensure that Republicans in Congress stand behind the drug companies’ right to charge excessive prices.

It’s too early to know whether Biden, if elected, would prioritize lowering prescription drug prices. He should. Drug prices remain one of the top issues among voters. Nine in ten voters say this issue is “very important” or “somewhat important.”

Here’s more from Just Care:
October 14, 2020
Trump vows to lower Medicare drug costs but backs lawsuit that would raise them
President Trump has been unsuccessful at keeping pharmaceutical companies from raising prices, let alone enacting policies that lower them. So, he’s now claiming he is going to give $200 to millions of people with Medicare to help pay for the cost of their drugs. Even if he succeeds at this cockamamie plan, he is backing a challenge to the Affordable Care Act that would raise drug prices for people with Medicare considerably.

To be clear, it’s not at all likely that this whacky idea has legs or would offer meaningful help. Trump is talking about giving away $200 “Trump cards” in order to try to get older Americans to support his candidacy for re-election. It’s his latest attempt to show he cares about them. But, his actions speak louder than his words, and his actions hurt older adults substantially.

President Trump probably would need to take money from the Medicare Trust Fund to pay the $6.6 billion cost of this discount card idea. His authority to do so is questionable at best. He wants to use the Medicare waiver program, which requires that money spent on a new health care “innovation” come from health care savings. Trump claims savings from a proposed executive order to test pricing drugs for people with Medicare at the average of what other countries pay. Since that order is far from being implemented and will likely be challenged by the pharmaceutical industry, there are no savings.

Pharma has no idea what Trump is trying to do. And, even Pharma does not believe these $200 Trump discount cards will be of much help to older people in getting their medicines. The biggest winner would likely be the pharmaceutical companies, as many older adults would use the cards to fill prescriptions they might otherwise leave unfilled.

And, if the Supreme Court strikes down the Affordable Care Act, as President Trump would like, older adults with Medicare Part D will be big losers. Their drug costs would rise significantly.

Here’s more from Just Care:
September 29, 2020
President Trump blows drug deal with Pharma
In the past couple of months, President Trump has issued four executive orders, which he claims could lead to lower prescription drug costs. The proof is in the pudding, and there is none. Now, after blowing a deal with the pharmaceutical industry that would have put $150 billion in drug costs back in people’s pockets, President Trump is saying he wants to make drug importation from Canada legal in some instances. He is not likely to succeed at that either.

President Trump appears to believe that lowering drug costs could gain him reelection support, particularly from older adults whose support he has been losing. He recently spent a bunch of time negotiating for lower out-of-pocket drug costs with the pharmaceutical industry, including Medicare Part D copays, Jonathan Martin and Maggie Haberman report for The New York Times. But, to garner additional political support for his reelection, he told the pharmaceutical industry that he also wanted companies to provide everyone in the US with a $100 drug discount card, a “Trump card,” before election day. And, with that, the whole deal imploded.

The pharmaceutical industry would not agree to this political maneuver in the weeks before the election. And, Pharma argued $100 in savings would be of little help to people. So, instead, Trump released an executive order, which would test the benefits of having Medicare Parts B and D pay the average prices other wealthy countries pay for prescription drugs. That order has little chance of implementation.

Perhaps because President Trump wants to be known for having done something effective to lower drug prices and perhaps because he wants to do his state allies a favor, he is now talking about allowing states to import some prescription drugs from Canada, reports Phil Galewitz for Kaiser Health News. So far, six states are hoping to get the federal government to allow them to import Canadian drugs, Colorado, Florida, Maine, New Hampshire, New Mexico and Vermont. President Trump and Governor DeSantis of Florida are close allies, and this is something DeSantis wants; among other things, it would save the state $150 million a year.

The Office of Management and Budget (“OMB”) is currently reviewing the Food and Drug Administration’s final plan. The plan addresses the drugs that could be imported and the ways in which states would oversee drug importation. It does not allow importation of injectable and biologic medicines.

The plan might be so restrictive that it makes importation impossible. Even if OMB approves it, states might not be able to act on it. The pharmaceutical industry will challenge the plan in court, claiming it violates federal legislation and the US Constitution.

The Canadian government, for its part, is none too happy about this plan and is not going to support it. It fears that it could keep Canadians from getting needed medicines. There are not enough medicines available in Canada to satisfy the need in both the US and Canada.

So, the plan is dead on arrival. States would need to partner with the Canadian government if they wanted to import drugs from Canada.

Americans who want less expensive drugs can import them for personal use, as millions do today. While it is illegal to import them, the federal government has never prosecuted anyone for importing prescription drugs for personal use. Indeed, retail stores in Florida are in business to help Floridians import drugs from Canada.

For reasons beyond comprehension, neither the George W. Bush administration nor the Obama administration were willing to allow drug importation from Canada. They say they worry about “safety” issues when it comes to prescription drugs. It’s a strange claim given that they don’t worry about food importation safety issues and there are verified pharmacies around the world. Moreover, there is nothing safe about forcing people to forgo needed drugs they cannot afford because prices in the US are so high.

Canada’s drug prices are considerably lower than prices in the US, though other wealthy countries have lower prices overall. Even still, through importation, estimates are that cancer drug prices would be cut in half and heart drugs would be a quarter of what they are today.

Here’s more from Just Care:
September 23, 2020
Small non-profit helps lower price of some ineffective drugs
Caroline Humer reports for Reuters on the value of the Institute for Clinical and Economic Review (ICER) in holding drug prices down. ICER is a small not-for-profit research organization that determines the value of particular drugs and what they should cost. ICER has been effective at helping to lower the price of some prescription drugs.

Most other wealthy countries partner with independent research organizations like ICER to set prices for virtually all prescription drugs. The US government does not have its own agency or a partnership with an independent agency that determines the value of drugs. In this research vacuum, ICER has developed influence.

For example, some people thought that Gilead could charge as much as $10,000 for remdesivir because it was found to be helpful in treating COVID-19 patients. But ICER said that the drug did not justify a price of more than $5,000. Gilead ended up charging $5,700 for a ten-day supply.

ICER’s budget is not large enough to establish the value of all drugs or even most drugs. But, some say it has helped reduce the cost of almost 100 drugs. And, some health insurers keep off of their formularies certain drugs that ICER deems do not offer good value.

Drugs that ICER has determined cost way too much and are not cost-effective include Aubagio, for the treatment of multiple sclerosis, Ninlaro, for the treatment of multiple myeloma, Austedo, for the treatment of Huntington’s disease, and Rebif, an anti-inflammatory for the treatment of multiple sclerosis.

Not surprisingly, the pharmaceutical industry is not accepting ICER’s influence, which is reducing its profits. It is attacking the non-profit any way it can. Often, it relies on non-profits that are funded by pharmaceutical companies to attack ICER.

ICER’s goal is simply to help insurers and other prescription drug purchasers choose drugs that are cost-effective for a given condition, assessing the drug’s price and benefit to quality of life. To establish the fair value of a drug, it relies on a time-tested formula, QALY or quality-adjusted life year, what it costs to extend someone’s life with one year of good health. That is what other countries’ health systems do.

The federal government does not negotiate drug prices for Medicare or Medicaid. In fact, Congress forbade the federal government from using QALY to negotiate drug prices. ICER has been taking on that role, in a way.

Unfortunately, the pharmaceutical industry holds so much sway over pharmacies and other health care providers that CVS Health Corp was not successful at keeping drugs, which ICER has determined are not cost effective, off its formulary for employers.

ICER plans to look at prices for the novel coronavirus vaccine and COVID- 19 treatments with the goal of helping to ensure they are fair.

Here’s more from Just Care:
September 16, 2020
Drug prices: It’s time for the federal government to step in
Fran Quigley writes for Common Dreams about the need to end pharmaceutical company monopolies if drug prices are going to come down. The federal government right now could exercise its “march in” rights and do just that if it chose to. But, it is so beholden to the pharmaceutical industry, it is not clear when it will.

We do not have a free market for prescription drugs. Pharmaceutical companies have monopoly pricing power for brand-name drugs only because Congress has given them patent protections. Without those protections, drug prices would come down substantially.

It costs drug companies pennies to manufacture a drug. But, because of their patent protections, pharmaceutical companies can charge prices that are literally thousands of times more than it costs to manufacture and distribute the drugs. And, insurers pay them; they profit from these high prices.

Today, we are paying for the discovery of many drug innovations, from which pharmaceutical companies profit handsomely, with our tax dollars. The National Institutes of Health funds most drug research. In fact, it has funded research for every new drug developed in the last ten years.

The consequence of pharmaceutical patent protections: A large proportion of Americans cannot afford the medicines they need.

The House of Representatives passed HR3, which would allow the government to negotiate the price of hundreds of drugs over the next 10 years. And, it would limit the price of these drugs to around what other wealthy countries pay for them. But, the Republican-controlled Senate has let this legislation sit on the cutting room floor.

Until HR3 or other legislation is enacted to lower drug prices, the Department of Health and Human Services should exercise its power to make drugs affordable for everyone. It has the power to issue licenses to other drug companies to manufacture and distribute drugs that are priced too high–“compulsory licensing” power. The government also has the power to directly manufacture these drugs. Either way, the patent holder is paid a fee. However, the government has not used this authority.

The government’s power stems from the Bayh-Dole Act of 1980. It gives the federal government “march in” rights to issue a compulsory license for any drugs discovered with federal funding. The only condition is that the drug must be deemed not to be available on “reasonable terms.”

We should also nationalize the vaccine industry and give government the ability to innovate and produce critical medicines. By so doing, we would not have to rely on the pharmaceutical industry for critical drugs.

There is no reason we need to be beholden to Big Pharma. The US has used compulsory licensing as a threat many times before. In dozens of instances, prices have come down. But, President Trump’s administration won’t use it or even threaten to. Instead, they force millions of Americans to go without needed medicines they cannot afford.

Here’s more from Just Care:
September 8, 2020
Coronavirus: Republicans in Congress side with Pharma, won’t block price-gouging for COVID-19 drugs
You would like to think that everyone in Congress would stand behind basic principles laid out by House Representative Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) and her colleagues in Congress to ensure that all novel coronavirus treatments are priced fairly and available to everyone. But, a group of Republican lawmakers, in partnership with Pharma, are doing nothing to block price-gouging for COVID-19 drugs and vaccines, Sharon Lerner reports for The Intercept.

Rep. Schakowsky and fellow House Democrats want reasonable prices for COVID-19 vaccines and treatments. The costs of research and manufacturing for these treatments should be public. Pharmaceutical companies should not have control over how to scale up production of these drugs or who has access to them. And, during this pandemic, pharmaceutical companies should not be able to profit indiscriminately.

Conservative organizations are daring to suggest that ensuring these drugs are affordable and available is “dangerous, disruptive, and unacceptable.” In fact, it’s these arguments that are dangerous, disruptive and unacceptable. The groups suggest that pharmaceutical companies will harm people with COVID-19 if they are not able to profit handsomely from these drugs. But, lowering drug prices will not affect innovation.

Thirty-one conservative organizations reject the value of ensuring everyone access to COVID-19 drugs and keeping pharmaceutical companies from setting high prices for them. The Hudson Institute, the Council for Citizens Against Government Waste, and Consumer Action for a Strong Economy, many of whom are supported by Pharma, are among those conservative organizations opposing fair pricing for these drugs.

It should be said that taxpayers have supported the research that is responsible for the vaccines now in clinical trials. Notwithstanding, Pharma insists that it would not be producing these drugs if it didn’t have intellectual property rights–patents–to them.

To be clear, pharmaceutical patents are the problem. They confer monopoly pricing power on pharmaceutical companies. They do not allow for fair prices. They undermine access to needed treatments. They hurt Americans. A November 2019 Gallup poll found that 34 million Americans knew someone who had died because he or she had not gotten a needed drug. It also found that 58 million people could not afford their prescription drugs. Drugs don’t work if people cannot afford them.

Other wealthy countries are working together to combat COVID-19. The World Health Organization is moving to ensure that research and data related to COVID-19 is not proprietary. President Trump says that the US will withdraw from the World Health Organization.

To date, Pharma lobbyists have succeeded at keeping reasonable COVID-19 drug pricing legislation from being enacted as part of stimulus packages. How many lives will be lost if they continue to succeed?

Here’s more from Just Care:
June 9, 2020
Coronavirus: Drug companies uninterested in combating infectious diseases
As the COVID-19 crisis grows, Big Pharma is trying to position itself as the key to ending this pandemic. But drug corporations have been uninterested in fighting infectious diseases for decades.

In this blog, we examine pharma’s deep disinterest in combating infectious diseases and why drug corporations are suddenly interested in working toward COVID-19 vaccines and treatments.

Recent History: A Drop In Pharma R&D

Drug corporations have substantially decreased their investment into treatments and vaccines for emerging infectious disease over the last decade. From 2010 to 2014, only six new drugs to treat antimicrobial infections were approved. That’s compared to years 1980 to 1984 when 19 new antimicrobial medications were approved. In 2018, only 1 percent of research and development projects were for emerging infectious diseases. In fact, of the twenty companies that spent $2 billion on research and development in the last year, only four have units dedicated to vaccine development.

The lack of innovation from drug companies to combat infectious diseases was so concerning that last year the United Nations issued a report outlining the global infectious disease crisis we face without more innovation.

Antibiotics and antivirals treat some of the world’s most deadly conditions, but they typically are only prescribed to patients for short periods, sometimes a couple of weeks or even a few days. They aren’t well suited for blockbuster sales. Instead, manufacturers are more interested in investing in drugs that patients take for long periods of time like cancer and chronic illness treatments.

A similar trend is true for vaccines, which are essential to ending the COVID-19 crisis. Over the last 50 years, the drug industry’s vaccine research and development pipeline slowed substantially because pharmaceutical manufacturers know the market for vaccines is small compared to chronic illnesses. The very design of vaccines make the markets small as individuals receive vaccines typically once, sometimes two or three times, throughout their lives.

Why is Pharma interested now?

So why are pharmaceutical companies suddenly competing to find treatments and vaccines for COVID-19? Because the extent of the crisis and generous government incentives have transformed this pandemic into a business opportunity with minimal risk and tremendous profit potential.

Profit Potential

Not until it became clear that the novel coronavirus was highly contagious and spreading rapidly did pharmaceutical corporations direct attention toward developing a vaccine. As the death toll and geographic reach of the virus advanced, the pharmaceutical industry knew that whatever company brought a vaccine to market would be selling a product with dozens of desperate government purchasers and billions of terrified buyers.

Though social distancing measures can slow the spread, drug companies know that stopping a pandemic of this proportion requires herd immunity — the phenomenon that occurs when a large proportion of a population has developed immunity to a disease. Since COVID-19 is extremely deadly, the safest way to achieve herd immunity is through widespread vaccination. Experts estimate that at least 300 million doses of a vaccine will be needed in the US alone. Even if all of those buyers require the vaccine only once in their lifetime, drug companies will see incredible profits.

Minimal Risk

With COVID-19, the US government has eliminated many risks that often dissuade drug companies from vaccine investments. By bankrolling research, sponsoring clinical trials, and eliminating all liability for drug corporations, American taxpayers are heavily subsidizing drug corporations’ search for a COVID-19 vaccine. In our previous blog, we outlined the key role that taxpayer funding is playing in ensuring effective drugs for COVID-19 come to market quickly.

The truth is the pharmaceutical industry’s top priority isn’t public health; it is out to make the highest possible profit. So it has not directed sufficient resources toward vaccines or treatments for emerging infectious diseases even though a pandemic has been predicted for years.

In the absence of reasonable pricing that accounts for taxpayer investments, the COVID-19 pandemic may provide an opportunity for drug corporations to turn minimal resources and risk into tremendous profits and leave taxpayers and patients footing the bill.

[This post was originally published at patientsforaffordabledrugs.org. Ben Wakana is the co-author.]

Here’s more from Just Care:
April 27, 2020
Coronavirus: Federal government should reconsider drug research incentives to prioritize public health

A new report from Public Citizen lays out the reasons for concern about the new coronavirus and the likelihood of future pandemics. In short, the US does not have a good system in place to develop treatments or vaccinations for these viruses. To address this problem, Public Citizen makes the case for changing the way our government incentivizes research and development so that the public health becomes the chief priority and not corporate profits.

Over the last 20 years, we have now seen three different instances of coronavirus spreading around the world and causing grave harm to people. We had SARS in 2002, severe acute respiratory syndrome. We had MERS in 2012, Middle East respiratory syndrome. And, we have the novel coronavirus now.

Government-funded research to develop tests, treatments and vaccines that protect against coronavirus disease is critical. And, the National Institutes of Health has been funding that research since 2002. All in, the NIH has invested more than $684 million in this research.

But, we still depend on big Pharma for treatments and vaccines to protect against coronavirus disease, even though pharmaceutical companies have not been investing in this research to any significant degree, participating in just six clinical trials. We must stop relying on these for-profit companies to provide us with the treatments we need for novel viruses and infections. Even when they have treatments, we cannot count on pharmaceutical companies to provide them at an affordable price.

Right now, to encourage pharmaceutical companies to undertake critical research, the US government gives them patent monopolies, allowing them effectively to set prices. The goal is to incentivize them to invest by promising that they will be able to secure a reasonable profit from a successful drug. But, instead, pharmaceutical companies with successful drugs use their monopoly power to drive drug prices sky-high and keep generics from entering the market. Moreover, they market their drugs heavily in cases where other less expensive drugs will provide better treatment.

Our patent system induces pharmaceutical companies to develop drugs that can earn them the greatest profit–such as cancer drugs–rather than drugs that treat the greatest needs. Cancer drugs now have an annual average price of $149,000. It hardly matters to a pharmaceutical company that its new cancer drug does not deliver a better benefit to patients than other drugs already developed.

Pharmaceutical companies can make killer profits if they focus on developing drugs to treat chronic conditions, often regardless of their safety or efficacy. A Government Accountability Report shows that the 25 biggest pharmaceutical companies brought in on average twice the profits as the biggest 500 companies!

Vaccines and antibiotics, in stark contrast, are far less profitable than cancer drugs and drugs for other chronic conditions. One-time cures deliver less revenue than medicines that are taken in perpetuity. Put differently, developing drugs to treat infectious diseases is not a good business model. Consequently, pharmaceutical companies have few in the pipeline.

In short, we cannot count on the pharmaceutical industry for treatments for infectious diseases and drug-resistant bacteria. So, what is to be done? Without new antibiotics, a U.K. report found that antibiotic-resistant bacteria could kill 10 million people a year by 2050.

We must stop giving pharmaceutical companies monopoly pricing power on their drugs. The lack of available treatments for the novel coronavirus demonstrates that our research model is broken and that we need a new model. Perhaps the government should be manufacturing drugs as well as paying for research and development. Or, it should be giving licenses to whichever companies want to manufacture a needed drug in order to drive competition.

We might also consider separating research costs from the prices charged for drugs in order to ensure everyone can benefit from needed drugs—an idea that enjoys support from some on the ideological right and the left.

March 23, 2020
Pharmaceutical companies continue winning in Washington
Public opinion may be against the pharmaceutical companies. And, Democrats in Congress, along with some Republicans, including President Trump, are railing against the high price of drugs. But, an article in Stat, explains that pharmaceutical companies are still winning in Washington.

The pharmaceutical companies deploy hundreds of lobbyists to ensure that Senators and Congressmen do not introduce bills that put their profits at risk. Most recently, they stopped a Republican senator from pushing out a bill that would have restricted their intellectual property rights. They also were successful at getting the Trump administration to do an about face on its proposal to have drug companies post drug prices on their television ads.

So far, the drug companies have thwarted all initiatives that would reduce their profits and lower drug costs. The President and Congress are lily-livered when it comes to taking on Pharma on behalf of Americans.

The only reason Pharma has power to set prices sky-high is because of Congressional legislation, be it granting pharmaceutical companies long patents on their new drugs or not allowing Medicare to negotiate drug prices, and not allowing drug importation. When it comes to prescription drugs, Congress has messed with the free market in favor of industry and against Americans in a multitude of ways.

Most federal drug legislation that protects Pharma’s interests is said to promote innovation. But, drug innovation in its current form–largely new versions of the same money-making drugs–is a red herring. All companies need to innovate, but they also need to compete based on price and quality. However, Congress does not require drug companies to compete based on the value of the drugs they deliver. It does not allow for meaningful competition. Other countries insist on independent panels to evaluate whether new drugs to market actually improve health outcomes; they won’t pay for drugs or won’t pay more for new drugs that do not improve health outcomes.

More likely, campaign contributions play a far larger role in ensuring the pharmaceutical industry does well by Congress than innovation. Lawmakers must worry that if they push legislation that hurts pharmaceutical company profits, when they are up for reelection, the pharmaceutical industry will support their opponents. We need campaign finance reform.

If you want Congress to rein in drug prices, please sign this petition

Here’s more from Just Care:
July 24, 2019
Millions safely import low-cost drugs from abroad
In 2017, Kaiser Health News reported that 19 million Americans import their prescription drugs from abroad. They can fill their prescriptions and save a lot of money. But, the pharmaceutical industry and its allies continue to perpetuate the myth that drug importation is unsafe. In fact, all the evidence suggests that if you use a verified pharmacy, you can safely import low-cost drugs from abroad.

Today, Americans pay twice as much as our peers in Japan and Europe for the same exact drugs. There is no good reason that we pay more. Congress simply has not been willing to regulate drug prices in the US, while governments in other wealthy countries have. But, public pressure is mounting, and there is now a bill in Congress introduced by Senator Bernie Sanders and Congressman Ro Khanna that would ensure we paid no more for our drugs than people in other wealthy countries.

Senator Sanders’ Medicare for All bill, which is receiving a lot of attention these days, would also drive down the price of prescription drugs, along with all health care costs. Other bills proposed to fix our dysfunctional health care system, most of which offer Medicare as a health insurance option for individuals, are not designed to bring down drug prices.

Since it will be a while before Congress regulates drug prices–we likely will need a Democratic Senate, House, and President–the safety of imported drugs has been top of mind for many people. Drug prices in the US are unaffordable for millions of Americans. The pharmaceutical industry wants you to believe you must get your drugs in the US. And, the federal government helps the pharmaceutical industry by making it a crime to import drugs–though it has never prosecuted anyone for importing drugs for personal use.

Today, some 45 million Americans do not fill their prescriptions because of the cost. Some suffer quietly. Some die. Why do our representatives in Congress continue to make it illegal to import prescription drugs, when they allow imported food and other products, and people’s health and lives hang in the balance? They are not representing their constituents but rather the pharmaceutical industry.

Wendell Potter reports for Tarbell that Pharma hires “experts” to promote the myth that it is unsafe to import drugs from abroad. Pharma has also used ad campaigns and supported a novel, The Karasik Conspiracy, to mislead the public about the safety of imported drugs.

People can buy drugs safely from abroad. PharmacyChecker.com verifies pharmacies around the world from which it is safe to buy drugs. No one has died from buying drugs from a verified pharmacy abroad with a valid prescription.

If you want Congress to rein in drug prices, please sign this petition.

Here’s more from Just Care:
February 26, 2019