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80% of US Voters Demand Acess to Cheaper Imported Pills

Americans are demanding a lower fairer price on their prescription pharmacy needs.

According to an article posted on July18, 2005 by Lisa Huriash, a staff writer for Sun-Sentinel, the AARP, has just released a national survey showing that four out of every five older Americans support the importation of cheaper prescription drugs.

Lisa, writes that Florence Socolov was among the first of the bus loads of consumers who had turned to Canadian and Canadian pharmacies to purchase medicines and tablets. Florence needs medicines to help increase the strength of her bones and the medication was cheaper over the border than at home in Fort Lauderdale.

Evidently, Florence noticed an advertisement in a Jewish magazine that offered an alternative to Canada. Now the 74 year old shops on the Internet and orders her medication from Israel. She can now find lower prices than those at Canadian pharmacies. There is also another little benefit she feels.

"There are enough companies that are being strangled into not doing business with Israel [because of political boycotts], and if I can do anything at all in my small way I will do it," she said.

Advertisers in national Jewish newspapers and magazines are often promoting lower prices and solidarity with their cause. The adverts tell shoppers they'll be "saving money and supporting the Israeli economy at the same time. "For her first order, placed in May, Florence paid $115.80 for a dozen 70 mg tablets of Fosamax, plus $9.99 for shipping. The same order could have cost $210.79 at a Walgreens in Tamarac, and $133.23 from Canada Prescriptions Plus, an online supplier of prescription drugs.

Like Canada, Australia, New Zealand and much of Western Europe, the Israeli government either establishes drug prices and or allows approved generic lines where patents have expired, to compete and thereby keeping prices down.

The prices can be as much as 70 to 80 percent lower in Israel, Mexico and India. Some brand name drugs are identical and others are generic products that use the same chemical constituents.

Critics say Americans who buy from other countries are compromising safety for cost."Many Canadian pharmacies have disclaimers that if you are hurt, you waive the right to sue them," said Tom McGinnis, the Food and Drug Administration's director of pharmacy affairs. If anything goes wrong with prescription drugs sold in the U.S., he said, consumers have recourse with the state pharmacy board and the FDA."It's more of a threat to public health of U.S. citizens because we don't know anything about these medications, how they are made, how they were stored and how they were shipped, as opposed to your state licensed pharmacy.

Florence indicated she isn't swayed by arguments U.S. drugs are safer."The [American] drug companies are robbers. They are not very straight with us. They are greedy," she said. "I'm sure the drug companies of Canada do not wish to poison their people; Israel does not wish to poison its people.

Many drugs are manufactured sold in the USA are manufactured in other countries in the first place. Lipitor and Viagra are made in Ireland, for example. Nexium is produced in Sweden and France. Prevacid is made in Japan.

Many reputable companies use blister or foil packaging system to eliminate the threat of counterfeit drugs. they stamp the expiration date on two layers of labels. That became standard practice throughout Israel years ago to prevent acts of terrorism against the drug supply, she said. Some overseas online pharmacies have been in business for over 30 years and importing into the USA for the past decade.

Avi Fadida, marketing manager for IsraMeds.Fadida said two-thirds of his clients are Jewish and like the idea of helping Israel financially. "We have Jewish people asking, especially in New York, in the Brooklyn area, begging for the kosher medications," Fadida said. Because they are considered lifesaving, prescription drugs are not subject to Jewish dietary laws. But some mainstream products create an issue for observant Jews because of such ingredients as gelatin or glycerin, which are made from non-kosher animals.

Many overseas companies have identified that the bulk of their customers are older consumers without private health insurance plans, and Jews and evangelical Christians who want to support Israel with their wallets.

AARP was using the poll that shows 80% of Americans would support the idea of putting pressure on Congress to pass a bill that would set up a certification process for legally importing medicines from selected countries.

The idea that a closed market will somehow kill off the demand for affordable fair priced medicine will not work. It is better to open the market so that honest business people can work in an open way.

People power is like the tide - it will find a way to flow. To find reliable suppliers, DrugStoreBestBuys.com offer many relaible online pharmacy options compared, both local and overseas.

Finally An EX FDA Executive Endorses Bill to Officially Legalise Prescription Imports

I just picked up a report by Tony PughKnight Ridder Newspapers that in WASHINGTON in late April 2005 - A bill to legalize prescription-drug imports is being endorsed by a former Food and Drug Administration commissioner Dr. David Kessler, who headed the FDA under former President George H.W. Bush - President Bush's father - and President Clinton. Well congratulations David. That would have taken some courage to do the right thing by the US public.

What is needed is a voice - people power can work - it has overthrown socialist regimes in the East that had become very self serving. In the US we seem to have an abundance of extreme capitalism. I see extreme socialism and extreme capitalism as 2 halves of the same circle, with the extremes of both parts actually touching each other so in reality there is nothing much between them.

This endorsement was in stark contrast to the well worn protectionist warnings that could easily have come from any of a number of ex communist countries. These warnings actually came from other witnesses who appeared before the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor & Pensions. The Big Pharma funded lobby group said the proposed measure would bring more counterfeit drugs into the United States and would slow U.S. drug companies' research and development by cutting prices which in turn would reduce their revenue.

The bill, sponsored by Sens. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., and Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, individuals could buy and import drugs from Canadian pharmacies registered with the FDA, starting 90 days after the legislation passes. One year after enactment, it would permit commercial imports from licensed pharmacies and wholesalers in Canada, the European Union, Switzerland, Australia, New Zealand and Japan. The number of licensed importers would be limited for the first two years.

The bill authorizes imports only of FDA-approved drugs manufactured in FDA-approved facilities.

The measure, and similar legislation by Sen. David Vitter, R-La., was designed to specifically address concerns over U.S. drug prices, which are up to 4 times higher than the rest of the world. The FDA currently doesn't seek prosecution of U.S. residents who fill personal prescriptions through mail order and the Internet.

However, the drug industry oppose widespread commercial importation, claiming that foreign drugs may be unsafe, counterfeit or improperly labeled, stored and shipped.

The Dorgan-Snowe legislation, co-sponsored by Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., requires that imported drugs be labeled in English and packed in tamper-proof packages, and that their chain of possession be accounted for from manufacture to distribution. A fee of 1 percent each from drug importers and exporters would fund the safety requirements.

Kessler, who's the dean of the School of Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, said the bill would make importing drugs safer for consumers, who now do it with almost no government oversight or safety assurance.

"Congress, I believe, has a responsibility to fix this serious problem," Kessler testified. "This legislation goes farther than previous attempts at addressing this issue."

Dr Kessler commended the bill for limiting the number of pharmacies and drug wholesalers that would be eligible to import medications during the first two years. In written testimony, Kessler said Congress "should consider whether similar limits should be included in the legislation for subsequent years, in order to keep the program manageable and of the highest quality."
A 2004 report by the Department of Health and Human Services found that assuring the safety of imported medications would be so costly that consumers would see a price break of only about 1 percent. Legalizing imports also would cut drug-companies' profits, which pay for research and development, resulting in three or four fewer approvals each year of innovative new medications, the report warned. This arguement can be seen as hog wash when you compare the percentage of money spent overseas and in the USA on research. Then compare the money spent on marketing and entertainment and lobby funds. If the later were reduced to the same levels as elsewhere in the world, not only would USA prices fall but research would not suffer.

Several witnesses at the hearing cited other concerns. Thomas Arthur, the dean of the Emory University School of Law in Atlanta, said allowing drug imports was tantamount to importing foreign price controls. Graham Satchwell, who heads a London firm that helps drug companies implement anti-counterfeiting measures, said the United States would be a prime target for counterfeiters if importation were legalized.

Supporters of the bill think the proposal has the votes to pass in the Senate. The idea has had strong support in the House of Representatives in the past. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn, while supporting hearings on the measure, hasn't committed to a full floor vote. Frist's spokeswoman, Amy Call, said the senator supported importation if safety could be assured. She said she was unclear whether he thought the Dorgan-Snowe bill met that test.

Meanwhile the whole business of affordable medicines for US consumers sits in a limbo like grey area. Please visit this link to see a complete review of low prices from reliable pharmacies

People power may come to the rescue.

Which Drugs Are Right For You?

Most doctors will tell you about the power that continual pharmaceutical advertising has on television to persuade the public to demand the latest drug, often without a clear understanding of whether they need the prescription.

In clinical trials, new drugs usually are tested on a sample of usually less than a few thousand people. The trial sample does not cover all the possible side effects that may occur. However, direct-to-consumer advertising helps greatly enhance sales of these largely unknown products.

By the time hidden side effects surface, millions of people may have used it. That happened with new-generation painkillers such as Vioxx, linked to thousands of heart attacks and deaths.

The governing body of the American Medical Association, which represents some 250,000 physicians, will not support legislation in Congress to ban direct-to-consumer ads on TV and in print for a period of time following approval of pharmaceuticals by the federal Food and Drug Administration.

Instead, the AMA's house of delegates, at the group's annual meeting in Chicago, adopted a resolution calling for "further study" of the problem. In the process, the group shuffled aside no fewer than six resolutions from various state delegations that argued strongly in favor of a ban.

AMA officials insisted the action doesn't mean the association won't eventually support a ban, but published reports indicate that the pharmaceutical industry launched a full-court lobbying campaign at the Chicago convention to thwart action by the physicians.

Big Pharma's line with the AMA was the same one to Congress: Don't ban drug ads; the industry is going to limit them voluntarily.

In view of the explosion of such advertising since the lifting of a previous federal ban in 1997, voluntary limits are not enough. The drug industry spent $1 billion a year on advertising before the ban was lifted. Now it's $4 billion and climbing, and only Americans living overseas are immune to the explosion.

The advertising message is very simple: "Ask your doctor if [Cialis, or Nexium, or Lipitor] is right for you."

This tends to assume that every patient needs prescription for expensive name-brand drugs for erectile dysfunction or acid reflux or high cholesterol. Less expensive generic substances work just as well, but the catchy brand ads prompt them to ask just the same.

Physicians realize the problem because they spend a significant portion of their office hours dealing with such queries. Sometimes, the doctors even enable the industry tactic by prescribing certain drugs against their own better judgment.

A recent study published in the AMA's own journal showed that primary-care physicians were five times as likely to write a prescription for an anti-depressant if the patient mentioned a specific name brand.

The AMA to want to have all the data it can get on direct-to-consumer ads, but some of the objections are weak, eg it is suggested a ban would violate the free-speech rights of the drug companies. If the federal government can ban tobacco advertising, it can ban harmful drug ads.

It is also interesting that the main reason Big Pharma want to block the availability of generic drugs online, is because generics spoil the returns required to make research viable. When the money spent on advertising is compared to the funds spent on research - the arguements of Big Pharma sound hollow.

The fact is as a percentage of pharmaceutical lines revenue other nations spend about the same as USA on research. Yet in other countries like Canada and Australia, pharmacy lines are up to 80% cheaper. So where is the big price difference you ask? Well we have just gone full circle, take a look at the advertising.

To discover the best prices please review a well respected directory DrugStoreBestBuys.com, which is packed with product and pharmacy service and price comparisons.

Top Pharmacies good Jive Network Replacements

Many people are now requesting a pharmacy to replace Jive Network - Epharmacist and PillAgent in particular.

The last correspondence we received from a Jive executive was that they expected to be operational again within a few weeks. However, that was over a month ago. It is unlikely we will see them re-open. Jive bank accounts and assets are still frozen.

Therefore we have carefully evaluated alternative pharmacies for you to consider. Top 7 brand supply USA based pharmacies and full ratings list.

The most successful delivery outcomes are from those of the USA based pharmacies, such as USAOnline or Direct-Pharmacy. There are many issues to consider.

Unfortunately, in relation to Jive Network, we will need to wait for an outcome , as we have no magic wand.

Our view is that the are many grey areas with online products that very powerful pharmaceutical manufacturers are trying to create. These pharma companies think the US market is wonderful for its high protection barriers created through their powerful government lobby. These protection barriers, implemented by FDA, many of whom are past pharma company executives, ensure pharmaceutical manufacturers can charge up to 500% more in the US than internationally.

The big pharma companies claim that their prices are justified in the US to cover the cost of research. The fact is that the rest of the world does not see expensive conventions in 5 star Hawaiian resorts, or six figure salaries for people only employed as Washington lobbyists, as research. In fact the proportion of the total revenue that is spent on research appears to be no higher than in countries where prices are much lower. This does not seem to slow the extensive research conducted by pharma companies outside of the USA.

There are cheaper online pharmacies on our complete list who say buyer beware - so we rate them at the bottom of our evaluation tables. The top 7 pharmacies we list, ship out a replacement delivery without question if you do not receive your order.