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CNN Live Sunday
Americans Cross Border For Cheaper Prescription Drugs
Aired September 28, 2003 - 16:45 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CHOI: Cross border drugs once meant heroin and cocaine. Now it means Prozac and Viagra. Prescription drugs are not being imported in great quantities from Canada, where they're much cheaper, but some state governments are considering it. And Julie Rovner health correspondent for NPR joins us now to talk about this. Thanks for joining us.
JULIE ROVNER, HEALTH CORRESPONDENT, NPR: Hi.
CHOI: So we know that at least one area, Springfield, Massachusetts, is doing this. But now we're hearing that Iowa is considering it, the state of Illinois is considering it, a bunch of other states as well. Do you think the states will follow suit?
ROVNER: Well, it's not entirely clear. These states are looking at it. They haven't said they're going to do it. In fact, I talked to the governor of Illinois the week before last. He said we're not going to do it unless the FDA says that it's ok. And up until now the FDA has not told anyone it is OK. In fact, the FDA is going after the vendor that's providing the drugs to Springfield, Massachusetts.
CHOI: Yes, but the law currently authorizes the FDA to stop unsafe drugs coming into the U.S., but does that translate into the FDA stopping all foreign drugs?
ROVNER: The FDA actually, the law is that they can stop all unapproved drugs and the FDA's position, and this is pretty much in the law, is that anything that is not made and labeled and brought in under explicit FDA rules is an unapproved drug.
These drugs from Canada, technically the drugs that your grandparents get on the bus and go to Canada and buy and bring back, those are technically in the U.S. unapproved drugs, even though they're largely safe and the very same drugs they're getting here. Those are technically under the law not approved.
All of the imports are illegal. It's just that the FDA has chosen not to enforce that. They have pointed out there's kind of a PR problem with going and snatching a bag out of grandma's hand.
CHOI: Yeah, but people have a really strong incentive to go out of country, because I understand, you can you save anywhere from 30 to 75 percent. That's a whole lot of money.
ROVNER: That is a whole lot of money. Canada has price controls. There's a whole lot of reasons that drugs are cheaper, but it's largely Canada limits the price that they'll allow drugs to be sold for and to some extent the drug companies have voluntarily sold drugs in Canada for less because Canadians earn less than Americans do.
If you have a parody of buying power they'd suffer less. The American dollar is worth much more than the Canadian dollar. But it's an enormous magnet if you will, because drugs are much cheaper in Canada, at least they are at the moment.
CHOI: Right, at the moment. In the long run, Julie, you say that this might not save people money after all. Why not?
ROVNER: It's not just me, the Congressional Budget Office when it was doing its estimate of the Medicare prescription drug which this fight is a piece, suggests that if there were bulk sales from Canada to the United States, prices would probably go up and what would really happen is the drug companies would simply stop selling Canada enough drugs to transship back to the United States.
And we're already seeing that, Glaxo Smith Klein, Pfizer, several drug companies have already warned Canadian pharmacies that if they continue to ship drugs back to the U.S. they're not going to sell them any more drugs than they need for their Canadian population.
So, at some point, if too many people start doing this and certainly if you get a state the size of Illinois that has 240,000 state workers and dependents, you could see the drug industry simply cut it off.
CHOI: Real quickly, Julie, we're running out of time. The FDA has raised the flag about safety issues. Is safety a real concern here especially when it comes to counterfeit drugs coming back into the United States through reimportation?
ROVNER: I think the FDA's biggest concern is with people who are buying drugs by the Internet. It's less for people who are physically going to Canadian pharmacies and bringing back drugs. It's more these Internet sites. They see a lot of sites that report to be in Canada but are in the Caribbean or in far east. Sites that say they're selling Canadian drugs but really aren't. That's the big concern, the FDA does not have enough people to basically police those shipments. They come in, just every day in droves to these transshipment points and the FDA has one or two people to inspect millions of parcels of drugs.
CHOI: Julie Rovner with the NPR. She's the health correspondent. Thanks for being with us.
ROVNER: Sure.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Aired September 28, 2003 - 16:45 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CHOI: Cross border drugs once meant heroin and cocaine. Now it means Prozac and Viagra. Prescription drugs are not being imported in great quantities from Canada, where they're much cheaper, but some state governments are considering it. And Julie Rovner health correspondent for NPR joins us now to talk about this. Thanks for joining us.
JULIE ROVNER, HEALTH CORRESPONDENT, NPR: Hi.
CHOI: So we know that at least one area, Springfield, Massachusetts, is doing this. But now we're hearing that Iowa is considering it, the state of Illinois is considering it, a bunch of other states as well. Do you think the states will follow suit?
ROVNER: Well, it's not entirely clear. These states are looking at it. They haven't said they're going to do it. In fact, I talked to the governor of Illinois the week before last. He said we're not going to do it unless the FDA says that it's ok. And up until now the FDA has not told anyone it is OK. In fact, the FDA is going after the vendor that's providing the drugs to Springfield, Massachusetts.
CHOI: Yes, but the law currently authorizes the FDA to stop unsafe drugs coming into the U.S., but does that translate into the FDA stopping all foreign drugs?
ROVNER: The FDA actually, the law is that they can stop all unapproved drugs and the FDA's position, and this is pretty much in the law, is that anything that is not made and labeled and brought in under explicit FDA rules is an unapproved drug.
These drugs from Canada, technically the drugs that your grandparents get on the bus and go to Canada and buy and bring back, those are technically in the U.S. unapproved drugs, even though they're largely safe and the very same drugs they're getting here. Those are technically under the law not approved.
All of the imports are illegal. It's just that the FDA has chosen not to enforce that. They have pointed out there's kind of a PR problem with going and snatching a bag out of grandma's hand.
CHOI: Yeah, but people have a really strong incentive to go out of country, because I understand, you can you save anywhere from 30 to 75 percent. That's a whole lot of money.
ROVNER: That is a whole lot of money. Canada has price controls. There's a whole lot of reasons that drugs are cheaper, but it's largely Canada limits the price that they'll allow drugs to be sold for and to some extent the drug companies have voluntarily sold drugs in Canada for less because Canadians earn less than Americans do.
If you have a parody of buying power they'd suffer less. The American dollar is worth much more than the Canadian dollar. But it's an enormous magnet if you will, because drugs are much cheaper in Canada, at least they are at the moment.
CHOI: Right, at the moment. In the long run, Julie, you say that this might not save people money after all. Why not?
ROVNER: It's not just me, the Congressional Budget Office when it was doing its estimate of the Medicare prescription drug which this fight is a piece, suggests that if there were bulk sales from Canada to the United States, prices would probably go up and what would really happen is the drug companies would simply stop selling Canada enough drugs to transship back to the United States.
And we're already seeing that, Glaxo Smith Klein, Pfizer, several drug companies have already warned Canadian pharmacies that if they continue to ship drugs back to the U.S. they're not going to sell them any more drugs than they need for their Canadian population.
So, at some point, if too many people start doing this and certainly if you get a state the size of Illinois that has 240,000 state workers and dependents, you could see the drug industry simply cut it off.
CHOI: Real quickly, Julie, we're running out of time. The FDA has raised the flag about safety issues. Is safety a real concern here especially when it comes to counterfeit drugs coming back into the United States through reimportation?
ROVNER: I think the FDA's biggest concern is with people who are buying drugs by the Internet. It's less for people who are physically going to Canadian pharmacies and bringing back drugs. It's more these Internet sites. They see a lot of sites that report to be in Canada but are in the Caribbean or in far east. Sites that say they're selling Canadian drugs but really aren't. That's the big concern, the FDA does not have enough people to basically police those shipments. They come in, just every day in droves to these transshipment points and the FDA has one or two people to inspect millions of parcels of drugs.
CHOI: Julie Rovner with the NPR. She's the health correspondent. Thanks for being with us.
ROVNER: Sure.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
