Wednesday, December 15, 2004
Drug trouble brewing in Canada
[Clifford Krauss, "Internet Drug Exporters Feel Pressure in Canada," The New York Times, 11 December 2004.]
Some Canadians are beginning to question the ethics of doctors signing off on prescriptions for patients they have never seen, and worries are also beginning to surface over their own supply of drugs:
Canadian officials, worried about the threat of liability lawsuits and the problem of maintaining an adequate, reasonably priced supply of prescription drugs for their own population, are casting an increasingly wary eye on the industry.
At the same time, online pharmacies are having an ever more difficult time finding supplies because, they say, the major pharmaceutical companies are threatening wholesalers who do business with them.
Currently, before a pharmacy can fill a prescription, a Canadian doctor co-signs an American customer's prescription, after reviewing the original doctor's diagnosis and prescribed treatment. But the practice of co-signing a prescription without examining a patient may be a violation of professional medical standards. Stiffening those requirements would remove the threat of lawsuits but, if extended to other provinces as the industry fears, also kill the online industry in Canada.
Canada's health minister, Ujjal Dosanjh, has raised this issue repeatedly and indicated that he would shut down the industry if he felt it was necessary. "We will do the right thing, and if the consequence is that cross-border Internet pharmacies don't exist anymore, then that's the consequence," he said in a recent television interview.
Another commonly expressed fear is that the online drug industry may ultimately reduce supplies for Canadians, raise prices and jeopardize the financial health of provincial governments, which finance purchases of prescription drugs.
"It is difficult for me to conceive of how a small country like Canada could meet the prescription drug needs of approximately 280 million Americans without putting our own supply at serious risk," Mr. Dosanjh said in a speech last month. "Canada cannot be the drugstore of the United States."
Industry leaders are trying to ease concerns in Canada that their businesses could reduce Canadian supplies by emphasizing that they are interested only in filling the needs of uninsured and underinsured Americans. They do not want to overreach and antagonize the Canadian government by making bulk sales to American insurance companies, health maintenance organizations and state governments seeking to pass on savings.
[Matthew Hisrich, "Sebelius Is Practicing Black-Market Politics," The Wichita Eagle, 10 December 2004.]
[Clifford Krauss, "Internet Drug Exporters Feel Pressure in Canada," The New York Times, 11 December 2004.]
Some Canadians are beginning to question the ethics of doctors signing off on prescriptions for patients they have never seen, and worries are also beginning to surface over their own supply of drugs:
Canadian officials, worried about the threat of liability lawsuits and the problem of maintaining an adequate, reasonably priced supply of prescription drugs for their own population, are casting an increasingly wary eye on the industry.
At the same time, online pharmacies are having an ever more difficult time finding supplies because, they say, the major pharmaceutical companies are threatening wholesalers who do business with them.
Currently, before a pharmacy can fill a prescription, a Canadian doctor co-signs an American customer's prescription, after reviewing the original doctor's diagnosis and prescribed treatment. But the practice of co-signing a prescription without examining a patient may be a violation of professional medical standards. Stiffening those requirements would remove the threat of lawsuits but, if extended to other provinces as the industry fears, also kill the online industry in Canada.
Canada's health minister, Ujjal Dosanjh, has raised this issue repeatedly and indicated that he would shut down the industry if he felt it was necessary. "We will do the right thing, and if the consequence is that cross-border Internet pharmacies don't exist anymore, then that's the consequence," he said in a recent television interview.
Another commonly expressed fear is that the online drug industry may ultimately reduce supplies for Canadians, raise prices and jeopardize the financial health of provincial governments, which finance purchases of prescription drugs.
"It is difficult for me to conceive of how a small country like Canada could meet the prescription drug needs of approximately 280 million Americans without putting our own supply at serious risk," Mr. Dosanjh said in a speech last month. "Canada cannot be the drugstore of the United States."
Industry leaders are trying to ease concerns in Canada that their businesses could reduce Canadian supplies by emphasizing that they are interested only in filling the needs of uninsured and underinsured Americans. They do not want to overreach and antagonize the Canadian government by making bulk sales to American insurance companies, health maintenance organizations and state governments seeking to pass on savings.
[Matthew Hisrich, "Sebelius Is Practicing Black-Market Politics," The Wichita Eagle, 10 December 2004.]
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