FDA: Canadian Drug Terror!!

[reprehensor]

(The FDA story was previously posted in LBN, I'm trying to flesh it out a little. -r.)

On the same day that Kerry launches this;

Kerry Outlines Plan to Bring Down Health Care Costs, Including Prescription Drugs

"Kerry and Edwards will allow reimportation of safe, FDA-approved prescription drugs to give Americans access to the substantial discounts for prescription drugs in Canada, and require the Secretary of Health and Human Services to negotiate better prices for prescription drugs under Medicare. They will end loopholes that keep more affordable prescription drugs from the market and help states provide relief by allowing them to extend Medicaid discounts."


The FDA launches this;

FDA Warns of Terrorist Drug Tampering

Posted on Wed, Aug. 11, 2004

WASHINGTON - Tampering with prescription drugs could be a way for terrorists to launch an attack on Americans, acting Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Lester M. Crawford said Wednesday.

Crawford said in an interview with The Associated Press that possible action by terrorists was the most serious of his concerns about the increasing efforts of states and cities to import drugs from Canada to save money.

more@link

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Just a coincidence.

[WyLoochka]

1. This just gets more and more depressing

It's highly likely this is not a coincidence. Seems more like a pattern.

We, the people, are beginning to assert ourselves and BushCo strikes again with the fear everything, all the time shit.

[cynatnite]

3. Disgusting

This is just pathetic! Can they get any more desperate?

Next thing you know, Kerry will be going after big tobacco. They'll strike back with the carcinogens terrorists might have packaged in in the smokes.


Cyn:)

[reprehensor]

5. "I sense a pattern in the Force, Luke..."

Yup. Pretty soon "Fear of Terror" will be used to justify limiting stem cell research.

Terrorists could git in there and uh, mess up the jeans, or the RDA or whatever...

[kestrel91316]

2. Ooooooohhhhhhhhh, I'm SO scared! n/t

[liberalmuse]

4. Oh, gee.

I saw the headline about 'Drug Terror' earlier and instead of reading it, joked to myself that it had to be about the U.S. government (i.e.; the pharmacetical companies) warning us away from the drugs in Canada or Mexico. What do you know? Can they be more craven and transparent in their insatiable greed? This is just...insulting. I'd spit in their faces, but my spit is too good for 'em.

[reprehensor]

6. Meanwhile in Vermont...

Vermont to sue FDA over drug imports from Canada

Vermont is poised to become the first U.S. state to sue the U.S. Food and Drug Administration after the agency rejected a plan to import cheaper prescription drugs from Canada, which has price controls.

Vermont, which borders Canada and is the second-smallest state with about 616,000 residents, said it learned Monday that the FDA had turned down its request for a pilot drug-import program. That prompted Gov. Jim Douglas, a 53-year-old Republican who is seeking re-election this November, on Tuesday to say the state will fight the FDA decision in court.

''Vermont presented a legal and responsible plan to import prescription drugs,'' Douglas said in a statement. ``The claims on which they've based this denial are, in our view, unsubstantiated, and we have no choice but to pursue any and all legal remedies.''

Americans illegally purchased $1 billion in medicines from Canada last year. U.S. lawmakers are considering bills to make the purchases legal, under pressure from consumer groups and states. The FDA, which has said it can't ensure the safety of imported drugs, hasn't enforced the ban on individual purchases.

more@link

Remember, the FDA terror warning is a total coincidence.

[iverglas]

7. leave us out of it

That's all. Just leave us out of it. All of you -- Kerry and his plan to have USAmericans buy their drugs from Canada, the FDA and whatever the fuck it's on about.

We are not your dealer.

And we are not some primitive pre-industrial society incapable of performing complex tasks like dispensing pharmaceuticals.

Leave us out of it.


I have seldom heard anything as ludicrous as a candidate for president of the US (or governor of a US state, or any of the rest of them) promising to solve a problem in his/her own country by going cross-border shopping. Well, except for whatever the fuck the FDA is on about.

Canadians enjoy lower drug prices because we negotiated them with the pharmaceutical companies. We negotiated them for *us*, not for you down there. A deal of this nature is the result of agreement between two willing parties. The parties are willing to make the deal in a particular set of circumstances. If the circumstances change, one party just might not be willing to deal.

When your local supermarket puts hamburger on sale at a low low price, it doesn't invite all the other supermarkets to come in and stock up. Its hamburger suppliers would hardly be willing to provide the hamburger cheap to one supermarket if doing so were going to undermine its sales to other supermarkets. Apply that principle to Canada and the drug companies. Why would those companies sell drugs at low prices in Canada so that they could be sold in the US and undermine their sales there??

We feel for your seniors who have to choose between food and drugs. We feel for them a lot. But they do not live in some less-developed, impoverished nation; they live in the proverbial richest country in the world. It is really not our responsibility to solve their problems at potential serious risk to ourselves.

There are also risks involved in being used as a scapegoat by the most powerful country in the world for its various other woes. There may be not a grain of truth, or even a colour or probability, in whatever the fuck the FDA is on about -- but this constant focus on Canada as the potential source of contaminated drugs, inappropriate drugs, blah blah, is not exactly flattering. And we all know how much easier it is to do unpleasant things to someone once your constituency has heard that someone vilified and demonized repeatedly.

The image of Canada in the US *does* matter to Canadians -- not as a matter of national pride, but as a matter of economic security. We already endure enough illegal and improper interference with our export trade to the US (softwood lumber, the mad cow nonsense -- thousands of people out of work, whole regions economically devastated), whether for protectionist reasons or just to punish us for not jumping when told to. We don't need any more smearing of the sort can only create the climate for further assaults on our economy.

Just leave us the hell out of it. Really. Democrats have a responsibility to the people of their own country to solve their problems, and it is cheap and cowardly to use our coat-tails as a way to avoid confronting that problem, whether it be by providing adequate income support or targeted subsidized drug programs or by standing up to the pharmaceutical companies.

The failure to do that is the real cause of nonsense like what is being spouted by the FDA; *we* have nothing to do with it. We wish you well and we wish you luck, but you're really just going to have to plant your own backyard and deal with your own weeds, and not rely on picking our veggies and blaming us for your homegrown thistles and thorns.


(typo fixed on edit)

[Killarney]

9. That's pretty selfish.

You say Canadians enjoy lower prices because you negotiated them, like the US has nothing to do with it.

US companies invented most of these drugs. US citizens PAID for most of the R&D of these drugs. The reason your prices are so low is because ours are so high. They can afford to sell to you for less because they rape us.

[iverglas]

12. oh really

That's some fine talk coming from south of that border.


US companies invented most of these drugs. US citizens PAID for most of the R&D of these drugs. The reason your prices are so low is because ours are so high. They can afford to sell to you for less because they rape us.

Somebody seems to need to stop listening to quite so much Republican/pharmaceutical company propaganda.

I guess there's really no need to respond to such wild and unsubstantiated allegations.

But really. An entire country, the richest and most powerful in history, being "raped" by a few corporations, while some other insignificant little country is, for some inexplicable reason, given a sweet deal. Really. I don't think so.

There are a whole lot of reasons for high drug prices in the US, and R&D really is not at the top of the list.

[Killarney]

13. If you don't think corporations are raping US citizens

you've got your head in the sand.

Drug companies are able to charge US citizens the high prices that they do because they line the pockets of the politicians that make the laws. Since the drug companies finance the lawmakers, the lawmakers make sure the drug companies get what they want--the ability to charge us inflated prices (through ridiculously extended patents and through minimal or NO competition). Drug companies line the pockets of Republicans that they know will vote against importation from Canada because they know that if we are allowed to import from Canada, they will be forced to compete on price.

This is all common knowledge.

[iverglas]

14. well there we go

Drug companies are able to charge US citizens the high prices that they do because they line the pockets of the politicians that make the laws. ...

That really is not what you said the first time, is it?

[Killarney]

15. It doesn't contradict it, though.

Drug companies are able to charge US citizens more because they payoff the lawmakers. TRUE.

US citizens, in paying more, are paying the majority of the R&D of the drugs that US & Canadian citizens use. TRUE. Simple math.

And I stand by my statement that I think it's selfish of you to not want US citizens to be able to buy from Canada.

[iverglas]

16. try again

And I stand by my statement that I think it's selfish of you to not want US citizens to be able to buy from Canada.

If only I'd said, or you had any reason to think or say that I thought, that I did not want US citizens to be able to buy from Canada.

I have long since ceased to be gobsmacked by the straw that is flung around at DU.

That is not what I said. That is not what I meant. Why you would think I said that, or want to misrepresent me as having said or as thinking that, I don't know.

If US citizens (residents, actually; I don't think citizenship comes into it) were able to buy their drugs from Canada and Canadian residents were assured that there would be no retaliation or negative fallout -- whether in terms of our own access to drugs at reasonable prices or in terms of further vilification of Canada in the US and the reasonably foreseeable long-term effects of such vilification -- I would say c'mon up, folks, the drugs are fine.

I would be perfectly happy if US residents were able to buy drugs in Canada if Canadian residents did not bear the costs of the various kinds that can be anticipated.

You are *not* entitled to shift your costs to us. THAT is my point.

If *you* think that you're getting a raw deal because you're bearing the cost of some mythically enormous R&D expenses that we have shifted to you, go right ahead and do something about it.

The problem you have is in fact a great deal more complicated than just lobbying and R&D expenses, you'd find if you actually looked into it.

But if you have a legitimate complaint that you can substantiate regarding Canada's dealings with pharmaceutical companies and how it affects people in the US, go ahead and make it; and I'll make mine about the problems that these cross-border shopping activities are or are likely to cause us. So far, you really haven't met your own burden of proof.

[Killarney]

17. You're not even making any sense!

Now you're claiming that you never said you didn't want us to buy drugs from Canada and acting all indignant that I would even infer that. Um, hello? Read your post.

This is what you said in your first post:
Just leave us out of it. All of you -- Kerry and his plan to have USAmericans buy their drugs from Canada, the FDA and whatever the fuck it's on about. We are not your dealer.

Leave us out of it.

Just leave us the hell out of it. Really. Democrats have a responsibility to the people of their own country to solve their problems, and it is cheap and cowardly to use our coat-tails as a way to avoid confronting that problem, whether it be by providing adequate income support or targeted subsidized drug programs or by standing up to the pharmaceutical companies.

We wish you well and we wish you luck, but you're really just going to have to plant your own backyard and deal with your own weeds, and not rely on picking our veggies and blaming us for your homegrown thistles and thorns.

That translates to me that you don't want US buying drugs from Canada. Clear as day. You'd have to be an idiot not to get that very clear message from your post.

Good day.

[iverglas]

19. hire a real translator

I'm sorry, but I just don't put up with this kind of "interpretation".

You claim that my objection to Canada being used as both a safety-valve and a scapegoat for USAMERICAN PROBLEMS "translates as" I don't want you buying drugs from Canada is false.

I do not want to be a safety-valve for your problems if it is going to shift your problems to me.

I do not want to be a scapegoat for your problems if it is going to cause new problems for me.

It's really rather clear.

If you can figure out a way to take advantage of our deal without our losing the deal and without our being vilified in your country, I'll be ecstatic. More exports to the US (although it looks like they're coming from offshore anyhow). Lovely.

You'd have to be an idiot not to get that very clear message from your post.

I'd say that saying that one got that message from my post would be evidence of something less than brilliance or something less than candour. I've never been able to think of any other explanation for such claims, although I've often concluded that both work.

Christ a'mighty. If I objected to you using my bathroom because somebody was telling you that you'd catch syphilis from my toilet seat and this led to your kids beating my kids up, and because you just didn't want to bother to build your own and preferred to use your own money to go on holidays while I cleaned the bathroom, would you be saying that my message was that I didn't want you to have a place to pee?

That's called an analogy. It's supposed to help people see points.

[Killarney]

20. I'm sorry, but you're delirious.

Have another one, on me.
:toast:

[iverglas]

21. gee, is this where I say

"I know you are, but what am I?"

Such wonderful, civil discourse.

[Killarney]

22. Then I guess I'm supposed to say...

"but he started it!"

;)

Bygones. :toast:

[blondeatlast]

8. Can't be too careful about those damn pinko Canadians! nt

[Killarney]

10. That's a good catch

I definitely don't think it's a coincidence.

Drug companies are pouring money into people to prevent us from being able to buy from Canada and force the drug companies to stop bleeding us dry for their profits.

[flpoljunkie]

11. Look who's cashing in on the importation drugs scare...Giuliani Partners!

http://216.239.39.104/search?q=cache:I-p1TjtKKLAJ:www.f...

Bernard Kerik, Kerik-Kerik, LLC
 

First, I would like to thank the task force for the invitation and the opportunity to make these brief remarks. The purpose of me being here today is to advise the task force that the former Mayor of the City of New York, Rudolph Giuliani and Partners has been retained to conduct an independent review of the safety issues related to the wholesale importation of medicines from outside the U.S. 

As many of you know, I am the former Police Commissioner for the City of New York and as of recently was a senior advisor for the Minister of Interior for Iraq and a senior advisory to Ambassador Bremmer on the reconstitution of Iraq’s interior ministry . Today, I’m the CEO of Kerik-Kerik, and we’ll l be working with the Mayor on this review.   

The review includes documentation, site reviews, and we are making every effort to speak to people and groups on both sides of the issue, including those who support it as well as those who oppose the importation. Although the review will be on-going over the next few months, we anticipate having some preliminary findings this month, and we would be anxious to share them with the task force, as well as others. We are quite concerned about the growing support for wholesale importation of drugs or the purchase of medicines over the Internet when there are clearly so many unanswered questions regarding the safety of such practices. There are many risks to the health and safety of Americans with respect to the importation of drugs from outside this country.  

[cheezus]

18. They hate us for our elderly