Canadian drugs are safe, so what's the real issue?

Thursday, December 4, 2003

EDITORIAL:

Canadian drugs are safe, so what's the real issue?

If the Food and Drug Administration is going to lobby against Americans buying cheaper prescription drugs from Canada, it ought to at least be honest about it.

In recent months, as more Americans have taken advantage of low-cost drugs from Canada, the FDA has warned that the practice is both illegal and dangerous. The agency says it cannot guarantee the safety of cheaper drugs bought north of the border.

Now it appears, however, that the issue all along has been something other than safety. That's not surprising. Canadian drug sales to U.S. customers are estimated to be close to $1 billion annually, yet safety has not arisen as an issue.

In fact, Tom McGinnis, the FDA's director of pharmacy affairs, said last week that he's not aware of any instance where a person has died or been hospitalized because of quality control issues with drugs from Canada. Likewise, the Canadian government knows of no such injuries or deaths.

Given the huge volume of drugs now coming south, it's reasonable to infer that buying drugs from Canada is safe. It is disingenuous for the FDA to continue to criticize the practice on these grounds.

There are arguments for not allowing the practice, however. Canadian drug prices are regulated by the government, and that's why they are lower. If Americans buy drugs from Canada, that will harm the profits of drug makers.

If the FDA feels it's important to protect those profits in the name of keeping drug research dollars flowing, it ought to just say so. That's the real issue here, not the safety of Canadian drugs.

It's not clear that drug maker profits need to be high for research to be properly funded. At the least, it's a point worth debating. The trouble is, the FDA's safety straw man cuts off discussion of the real issue, and it's a debate long overdue in this country.

Americans pay too much for prescriptions because this is one of the few industrialized countries that has no price controls on drugs, even though our patent system grants monopolies on life-saving medications.

It's time to examine the way prescription drugs are developed and regulated in this country. In the meantime, Americans desperate for cheaper medicine shouldn't be denied access to Canadian pharmacies.

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