The U.S. Food and Drug Administration
is helping pharmacists’ groups in seven states discourage
consumers from importing low-cost drugs from Canada.
The Virginia Pharmacists Association is the latest to sign an
agreement for using the agency’s materials, including posters and
fliers, that outline the risks of buying drugs from foreign
sources, said Tom McGinnis, the FDA’s deputy associate
commissioner for pharmacy affairs, in a telephone interview.
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The agency is providing the materials as U.S. Senate Finance
Committee Chairman Charles Grassley is proposing legislation to
legalize drug imports. Federal health officials, who haven’t
enforced the restrictions for individual quantities, have joined
drugmakers in opposing the practice, citing the risk that some of
the medicines might be fake.
The FDA’s assistance “is a misuse of federal funds,” said
Senator Byron Dorgan, a North Dakota Democrat, in a telephone
interview. “They know as well as I do that when you purchase a
drug from a licensed Canadian pharmacy or distributor, it comes
from a drug supply that’s as safe as it is in the U.S.”
Dorgan said he will introduce his own bill to legalize drug
importation next week. Grassley’s proposal, one of at least three
legalization bills being prepared, would lift the prohibition
immediately and direct the FDA to find a way to perform
inspections and ensure safety.
Grassley, an Iowa Republican, and other state and federal
lawmakers are under pressure from consumer groups including the
Minnesota Seniors Federation to allow and assist in importing
drugs from countries like Canada, where government controls keep
prices lower.
The FDA developed the materials discouraging imports in
response to the Illinois Pharmacists Association, whose members
were concerned about patients buying drugs from foreign sources,
McGinnis said. Pharmacy groups in California, Texas, Maryland, New
York and Nebraska also have used the materials in the past month.
“Consumers can be fooled by Web sites that purport to be
Canadian pharmacies,” McGinnis said in a telephone interview.
“Sometimes when the drugs come in, they’re from India or
somewhere else.”
FDA investigations have turned up Web sites adorned with
Canadian flags and the country’s national symbol, the maple leaf,
that sell medicines originating in other countries, McGinnis said.
The agency has received reports from patients who bought drugs for
heart disease that turned out to be phony, he said.
McGinnis said the cost to develop the educational materials
was “nominal” and he didn’t know the exact sum.
Wisconsin, Minnesota and New Hampshire have set up links on
Web sites that guide consumers to Canadian pharmacies that sell
low-cost drugs. Rhode Island set up a Web link this week for its
residents to Wisconsin’s site.
Bloomberg News
