Healthy Skepticism Library item: 1381

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Publication type: news

Dixon K.
AARP steps into drug re-importation debate
Reuters 2003 Aug 7

Full text:

The biggest U.S. lobby for seniors sought to rally support on Thursday to legalize the purchase of prescription drugs from Canada, where regulation makes them cheaper.

The 35 million-member AARP, formerly the American Association of Retired Persons, hosted a town meeting with lawmakers in Chicago a day after Pfizer Inc.(PFE) threatened to cut supplies to Canadian pharmacists that ship the world’s biggest drug maker’s products to U.S. consumers.

“If it’s same drug and it saves money, why not?” asked Aaron Crosby, whose wife, Kathleen, age 70, takes 15 different medications including Pfizer’s own arthritis drugs Celebrex and anticonvulsant Neurontin.

“These drug prices are too cotton-picking high.”

The AARP, a lobbying powerhouse, blasted the steep climb in prescription drug prices in the United States. The pharmaceutical industry, which also lobbies heavily in Washington, says it needs to charge higher prices in the United States to recoup research costs for new drugs. Most other nations more tightly regulate the price of drugs.

“Re-importation is not a panacea for the problem of soaring drug costs, but it does hold the potential to place some downward pressure on the double-digit increases in costs that Americans face each year,” wrote William Novelli, president of the seniors’ lobby, in a letter to several congressmen.

The AARP took part in the town-hall meeting Thursday afternoon at the North Park Village seniors’ home in Chicago with Democrat Illinois Rep.

Rahm Emanuel, and Republican Rep. Gil Gutknecht. The meeting comes on the heels of a U.S. House vote last month to legalize so-called re-importation of prescription drugs.

Emanuel pointed out that the AARP’s own health plan, UnitedHealth Group Inc. (UNH), will pay for drugs bought from Canada.

“If importation from Canada is good enough for AARP members, it is good enough for Medicare,” he said.

The House vote, which crossed political party and regional lines, delivered a rare blow to the powerful pharmaceutical industry, which is wrestling with consumer discontent over rising prices for prescription drugs.

On Wednesday, Pfizer was the latest drugmaker to put tighter reins on where its drugs are flowing.

Steve Hahn, spokesman for the AARP, criticized Pfizer’s move, which mimics a similar one by U.K. drugmaker GlaxoSmithKline Plc (GSK), as an attempt to “starve out supply.”

Although 53 senators objected to the House measure because it does not allow for federal authorities to verify the safety of imported drugs, the backing sends a message to lawmakers, analysts said.

“All of this is combining to send a message to Congress that they have to do something to lower prescription drug prices,” said Gail Shearer, health analyst at Consumers’ Union. “Whether re-importation is really going to be the answer is really unclear.”

AARP’s Michael Naylor told the crowd of seniors that 100,000 members of his group had contacted lawmakers on the issue of adding affordable prescription drugs to Medicare in recent months.

Drugmakers “have got 600 lobbyists with unlimited expense accounts,” Naylor said. “But 100,000 voters on our side is not bad.”