Friday, August 20, 2004

Scare tactics gone berserk at FDA


As one of the most profitable U.S. industries in profits as a percentage of revenues, pharmaceuticals have gained a powerful chokehold on American life through contributions to pliable politicians, by slathering gifts on physicians and shrouding itself in the mystique of brewing magical potions.

The industry also has the capacity to go berserk and be a bully.

Faced with revenue losses by Americans purchasing their medications in Canada at far lower prices, drug makers have browbeaten the unthinking Food and Drug Administration into broadcasting a mindless alarm--drugs from Canada could be unsafe!


That inane claim from a government agency was too tame for FDA acting commissioner Lester Crawford, a veterinarian by training. He elevated the safety threat by asserting imported medicines could be intercepted and poisoned by--eek!--terrorists.

Heavens! The medicines Crawford fears could be contaminated are the same drugs sold in the United States, where terrorists presumably could just as easily tamper with them. What the FDA and drug makers fear is not the safety of medicines imported from Canada, but the price cap that Canada puts on drugs, unquestionably a genuine threat to the health of pharmaceutical profits.

Several states (Illinois, Wisconsin, Vermont and Minnesota) and a number of cities are buying drugs in Canada in bulk or setting up Web sites for con-sumers to use for orders. Bargains are obvious: for example, a three-month supply of the cholesterol-lowering medication Lipitor costs $214 in the United States, $162 in Canada.

Since the revolt against high drug prices is accelerating, drug makers are trying another bullying tactic--threatening to abandon research into new drugs. The message: without drug research, Americans will be left to die.

More nonsense. In his new book, ?Powerful Medicines: The Benefits, Risks and Costs of Prescription Drugs,? Dr. Jerry Avorn, a Harvard assistant profes-sor of medicine who has spent years researching pharmaceutical companies, points out that drug research is not a monopoly of pharmaceutical firms. Many drug discoveries come out of university research programs funded by the National Institutes of Health and by various foundations, whereupon drug compa-nies manufacture and distribute the products.

As for research, Avorn quotes a U.S. Health and Human Services study that found top pharmaceutical firms spend only about 13 percent of income on research, while 30 percent goes to marketing, sales and administration and 20 percent returned to shareholders as profit.

Dr. Avorn mocked the FDA concern about safety of imported medications during an appearance on National Public Radio this week.

?They?re not weird drugs made in a bathtub in Bangladesh,? he cracked.

The FDA, he said, is engaged in cynical scare tactics and politics.

But that seems the order of the day--keep Americans terrified of possible terrorists everywhere.

Is it possible the Agriculture Department is next with a warning about Canadian maple syrup being poisoned by terrorists?




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