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ehrnst

(32,640 posts)
Mon May 15, 2017, 02:50 PM May 2017

Canada's former minister of health weighs in on Sanders's plan to import drugs from Canada

Leona Aglukkaq was elected to the Canadian House of Commons in 2008 representing the riding of Nunavut. She served as Canada’s minister of health from 2008 until 2013.
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As someone who spent several years as Canada’s health minister, I know that allowing Americans to purchase prescription drugs from Canada could have terrible consequences for the citizens of both countries.

Under Sanders’s plan, Canada would simply serve as an intermediate transshipment point for unapproved drugs heading to the United States. Canadian authorities do not inspect every shipment of products headed for the U.S. marketplace to ensure that packages don’t contain adulterated, counterfeit or illegal drugs. Canada does not have the resources to undertake such comprehensive searches, and the Canadian and U.S. governments are not currently set up to facilitate such a program. Canada’s health-inspection regime is designed to ensure the safety of medications for Canadians, not for other countries.

Absent a major policy shift here in Canada, if bulk Canada-U.S. drug shipments were to become a reality, Americans could receive uncertified, uninspected, third-party drugs. Canada inspects drugs for its own citizens; Canadian authorities wouldn’t have the ability or resources to inspect medicines destined for the United States.

What’s more, there’s an opioid epidemic in the United States, and the situation isn’t much better in Canada; British Columbia recently declared a public health emergency to combat the opioid crisis. Because Canada isn’t inspecting all trans-shipped goods bound for the United States, there are dire concerns that international opioid smugglers could disguise their narcotics as prescription drug packages. The amount of fentanyl, much of it from China, reaching Canadian ports has skyrocketed recently. Canadian officials have seized fentanyl packages fraudulently labeled as containing zero grams of the deadly synthetic opioid. This is but one example of a problem that could be exacerbated by Sanders’s proposed legislation.

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Schroer points out that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration determined that 85 percent of the drugs sold by supposedly Canadian pharmacies come from 27 countries other than Canada. Some online pharmacies that advertise as being Canadian in fact are not, and there’s no real way for consumers to know. The difficulty in dealing with online pharmacies has confronted us for years and is only becoming more challenging as e-commerce becomes a larger part of our economy.

And that’s not all. Canada’s pharmaceutical industry is already strained trying to serve the relatively small Canadian market, never mind serving more than 300 million American consumers. As the former minister of health for Canada for almost five years, as well as a former minister of health in the Nunavut territorial government before entering federal politics, I am greatly concerned that excess demand from American consumers would siphon off Canada’s domestic supply of essential drugs, particularly for Canadians in remote communities in the north.

Canada’s federal health department has introduced regulations requiring drugmakers to report on drug shortages and launched a website called Drug Shortages Canada. These regulations were initiated in response to our own domestic supply challenges to ensure the health and safety of Canadians in terms of their access to important medications. If overnight the Canadian system was stretched to supply the U.S. market, the shortages in Canada could skyrocket.

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There will clearly be more demand in the years to come for innovative prescription drugs that prolong life, ease suffering and cure disease as the populations of Canada and the United States age. Consequently, there are opportunities for Canada and the United States to cooperate to bring new drugs to market faster, share data and outcomes, and invest in research, development and innovation on both sides of the border. That’s what American legislators should be focusing on — not bulk-buying Canadian medicines.


https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/global-opinions/wp/2017/05/12/dear-bernie-sanders-canada-is-not-americas-drug-store/?utm_term=.18562b4767fb
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mhw

(678 posts)
1. As friendly nations, we could have had such safe policies for the future .
Mon May 15, 2017, 03:04 PM
May 2017

Unfortunately we now have a President & his majority who regard humanity as only a means to ennrich themselves.

Its no longer "we the people" as they see it.
That is where they are taking this country .

Perhaps someday in the future after such unwise people are stripped of everything, America can have a chance again.
Until then, it is a dream built on hollow words.
Republicans today don't give. They take for their own.


"Consequently, there are opportunities for Canada and the United States to cooperate to bring new drugs to market faster, share data and outcomes, and invest in research, development and innovation on both sides of the border."

Response to mhw (Reply #1)

OneBlueDotBama

(1,371 posts)
6. She Later became Minister of Park Openings...
Mon May 15, 2017, 05:33 PM
May 2017

How an enviro minister spent her day not attending a climate summit
Canada's federal environment minister’s decision not to represent the country at The Climate Summit of the Americas this week in Toronto raised the question: how did she spend her time instead?

What was so important that kept Leona Aglukkaq, an Inuk environment minister —the first ever to be appointed to a federal cabinet role — away from those talks?

It seemed strange that she wouldn't feel an extra special responsibility to address the challenge of climate change, given that her own Inuit family, neighbours and constituents live in the fastest warming region on the planet —the high Arctic.

Opening a park that opened in 2003?

But Aglukkaq had other announcements to attend. During her northern tour, she gave a key gymnasium speech last week, attended by some 150 voters. Her talk was about the "official opening of Ukkusiksalik National Park” in Naujaat, her Facebook states.

But the national park has been open for 12 years, according to Parks Canada. It was created by the Liberal Chrétien government.

http://www.nationalobserver.com/2015/07/10/news/how-enviro-minister-spent-her-day-not-attending-climate-summit
 

ehrnst

(32,640 posts)
8. Totally discredits her on drug policy, doesn't it?
Tue May 16, 2017, 07:25 AM
May 2017

Last edited Tue May 16, 2017, 08:55 AM - Edit history (1)

It would be like saying that single payer health care failing in one's home state discredits one's federal single payer, or drug importing ideas...

 

ehrnst

(32,640 posts)
7. Really? Not seeing in her bio where she is a "spokesperson for the US Phama industry."
Tue May 16, 2017, 07:21 AM
May 2017

Is that because anyone who doesn't agree with Bernie Sanders on drug policy is a "spokesperson for US phama industry?"





OneBlueDotBama

(1,371 posts)
9. It's old news
Tue May 16, 2017, 08:56 AM
May 2017

Same crap from the same people every time someone mentions this practice.

The realities are that the big pharma will use their Canadian subsidiaries and their Canadian industry group to push this line and it has nothing to do with Bernie Sanders.

It has everything to do with leaving big pharma free to charge whatever pleases them.

 

ehrnst

(32,640 posts)
10. So, she's not. You're just using that as a perjorative for anyone, no matter who or how much they
Tue May 16, 2017, 09:39 AM
May 2017

know about Canadian drug policy, explains why this might not work.

They are dismissed with a wave of the hand as shilling for Big Pharma.

Sounds a lot like people who dismiss any news that they don't like about the current administration as "fake news."

OneBlueDotBama

(1,371 posts)
11. Sadly...
Tue May 16, 2017, 09:51 AM
May 2017

I do wonder why you feel the need to opine on a topic you clearly know nothing about.

Why not learn something about Big US Pharma, read their submissions to the TPP talks, tell me if you find a vein in there that sounds exactly like this uneducated Harper shill is spewing.

Go back over the years and read what US ambassadors have threatened Canada with with regard to this topic. Cutting off supplies of certain drugs, happened 15 or so years ago. In the TPP they wanted Canada to scrap the Patent Medicine Review Board, you know the folks who set the prices for drugs. They wanted the Common Drug Review scrapped, you know the folks who decide the effectiveness of new drugs, compared with current patent meds. They wanted Health Canada to partner with the FDA for drug safety approval. You are aware that many drugs approved for safety by the FDA are not approved in many other countries....

 

ehrnst

(32,640 posts)
12. I don't think I'm the one opining on a topic they clearly know nothing about.
Tue May 16, 2017, 09:55 AM
May 2017

I posted a link, you made a false claim that she is a spokesperson for US pharma.

When I refuted that, you just opined that all who comment on the obstacles to importing drugs are simply being used by big pharma...

So. I'll bite. Why don't you show me all those US ambassadors who have "threatened Canada with regards to this topic" and make the connection between them and the "false" statements that the former minister of health for Canada made in the service of Big Pharma.



OneBlueDotBama

(1,371 posts)
13. Use Google
Tue May 16, 2017, 10:04 AM
May 2017

Google HCV drugs Pegasus and Pegintron threat to restrict export to Canada due to US citizens entering Canada to purchase patent medications.

It's old news.

She's parroting the same crap that has been parroted for years.

I'll bite, what do you actually know about the pharma industry.

Tell us the percentage of drugs that are currently imported from the USA into Canada.

I'll give you a hint, exported those drugs back to the USA would not make the slightest dent in the Canadian pharm industry to produce enough meds for the population of Canada.

 

ehrnst

(32,640 posts)
14. "Oh, Google it yourself" - the standard reply of the "well-informed."
Tue May 16, 2017, 10:08 AM
May 2017

See, the thing is, I never claimed knowledge of the pharma industry. You did. That puts the onus on you to support your claims about the pharma industry and the author's link to them as a "spokesperson."

I simply posted the link, and you have repeated tried to discredit the author with innuendo, not facts.

When pushed to support those facts, you give the classic "Google it yourself," evasion.

I'll give you a hint, that's not how you present your arguments as credible.

You can't support your claims about this person. You don't like what she's saying. You should just own that.

OneBlueDotBama

(1,371 posts)
16. In simpler terms....
Tue May 16, 2017, 10:23 AM
May 2017

You're a supporter of clueless conservative politicians who failed to finish high school and suddenly start shilling for Big Pharma after they were tossed from office. You have a thing for Bernie Sanders.

You brought up Bernie, own it.

 

ehrnst

(32,640 posts)
17. Still no answers to the questions, I see.
Tue May 16, 2017, 10:40 AM
May 2017

And the Washington Post article addresses Bernie Sanders's drug import plan, so that is where it's brought up.

You haven't shown evidence of "knowing about the subject" and push off any requests for supporting your claims, and vague assertions that I "support" a politician because I shared an article by this person that was vetted by WAPO as informed on the topic. Another evasion, and a straw man to boot.

No links showing the threats our US Ambassadors have made to your Canadian leaders concerning this. We have similar right wing claims about how the Clintons had people killed, or at least did dastardly things to anyone who stood in the way of their devious plans for our country...

You have a knee jerk response to anything concerning "big pharma" it appears. And you seem to have a hate on for the author of the article. Something personal there? Or just some rocks you picked up via google to throw in the direction of anything that you suspect runs parallel with the mechanations of "big pharma."

Do you have anything to contribute to this thread other than waving it off as "shilling for big pharma?" Because that's all you have done.

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