The Wrong Way to Stop Fake Drugs
By ROGER BATE
NYT
Washington
IN 2007-8, when counterfeit versions of heparin, a blood-thinning drug, were shipped from China to the United States market, 149 people died. In the last few months, bogus versions of the cancer drug Avastin, apparently shipped from the Middle East, have surfaced in clinics in California, Illinois and Texas. Thankfully, so far as we know, they haven’t killed anyone, but more and more cases of dangerous fake drugs are being reported by the Food and Drug Administration. Numerous incidents surely go unreported, the evidence swallowed, the deaths incorrectly attributed to natural causes.
Fighting the fake drug menace is like playing whack-a-mole. It is technically illegal for individuals to order drugs online from other countries. And yet no sooner does the F.D.A. shut down one dubious online pharmacy than another pops up. According to the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy, only 3 percent of the 9,600 online pharmacies it has reviewed complied with industry standards. Many were based overseas, so their sales to Americans were illegal; others did not require doctors’ prescriptions. And some were very likely peddling dangerous counterfeit drugs.
And yet, the answer is not to outlaw this business entirely. Foreign versions of drugs can cost roughly half what they do in the United States. For the millions of Americans who are uninsured or underinsured, buying from international, credentialed online pharmacies could provide access to the medicines they need at a price they can afford. The online market for drugs is already substantial, with probably more than a million Americans regularly participating. But it is growing slowly because of concern about drug safety and, of course, legality. While the F.D.A. does not prosecute individual consumers whose purchases present no threat to themselves or the public and grants some waivers to those buying less than three months’ supply of a drug from abroad, most are still technically considered criminals.
The logic behind the current law is that it protects Americans from buying dangerous drugs. But there are better ways to guarantee that. In a recent National Bureau of Economic Research paper, I assessed the quality and price of drugs procured through Internet pharmacies. As expected, I found several foreign sites that sold fake drugs. But of the international Web pharmacies certified by the Canadian International Pharmacy Association or PharmacyChecker.com — 23 in all, with 211 drugs sampled — all passed quality-control tests. After all, they were the same drugs made by the same companies, just in different locations.
(More here.)
Washington
IN 2007-8, when counterfeit versions of heparin, a blood-thinning drug, were shipped from China to the United States market, 149 people died. In the last few months, bogus versions of the cancer drug Avastin, apparently shipped from the Middle East, have surfaced in clinics in California, Illinois and Texas. Thankfully, so far as we know, they haven’t killed anyone, but more and more cases of dangerous fake drugs are being reported by the Food and Drug Administration. Numerous incidents surely go unreported, the evidence swallowed, the deaths incorrectly attributed to natural causes.
Fighting the fake drug menace is like playing whack-a-mole. It is technically illegal for individuals to order drugs online from other countries. And yet no sooner does the F.D.A. shut down one dubious online pharmacy than another pops up. According to the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy, only 3 percent of the 9,600 online pharmacies it has reviewed complied with industry standards. Many were based overseas, so their sales to Americans were illegal; others did not require doctors’ prescriptions. And some were very likely peddling dangerous counterfeit drugs.
And yet, the answer is not to outlaw this business entirely. Foreign versions of drugs can cost roughly half what they do in the United States. For the millions of Americans who are uninsured or underinsured, buying from international, credentialed online pharmacies could provide access to the medicines they need at a price they can afford. The online market for drugs is already substantial, with probably more than a million Americans regularly participating. But it is growing slowly because of concern about drug safety and, of course, legality. While the F.D.A. does not prosecute individual consumers whose purchases present no threat to themselves or the public and grants some waivers to those buying less than three months’ supply of a drug from abroad, most are still technically considered criminals.
The logic behind the current law is that it protects Americans from buying dangerous drugs. But there are better ways to guarantee that. In a recent National Bureau of Economic Research paper, I assessed the quality and price of drugs procured through Internet pharmacies. As expected, I found several foreign sites that sold fake drugs. But of the international Web pharmacies certified by the Canadian International Pharmacy Association or PharmacyChecker.com — 23 in all, with 211 drugs sampled — all passed quality-control tests. After all, they were the same drugs made by the same companies, just in different locations.
(More here.)
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