(No subject)

[Guest guest]

" Live free or die " is the bold state motto of New Hampshire. And

in that spirit, NH Governor Craig Benson announced last week

that his state will defy federal law and purchase prescription

drugs from Canada for Medicaid recipients and prison inmates.

The estimated savings would probably top $1.5 million.

On the same day, Boston's Mayor M. Menino told reporters

that beginning next summer his city will buy Canadian drugs for

city employees, creating a projected savings of $1 million per

year.

And you can be sure that the FDA isn't one bit happy about all

this. But what are they going to do? Put Boston in jail? Beyond

issuing a stern warning, it will be interesting to see how far

the FDA attempts to go here. Especially when you consider that

the FDA can't even touch the biggest U.S. customer for Canadian

drugs.

And you might be flabbergasted to find out who that customer is.

I know I was.

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$afety fir$t

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Suddenly we have a real revolution in the works.

The New Hampshire and Boston announcements were made only one

day after President Bush signed the new Medicare bill into law.

At one point the bill contained provisions that would allow U.S.

Medicare patients to purchase less expensive Canadian drugs, or

U.S. drugs re-imported from Canada at rates much lower than they

could find anywhere here at home. But somewhere along the line

those provisions were quietly removed from the bill.

Now let's put our heads together and see if we can figure out

just who might have influenced various congressmen to remove

those boarder-hopping provisions that would have saved U.S.

consumers millions of dollars. Do you think lobbyists for drug

companies might have had something to do with it? And do you

think it might snow in Canada this winter?

Meanwhile, FDA officials continue to maintain that the economics

of the situation are of no concern to them. They say it's a

SAFETY issue, implying that Canadian safety standards are not

set at the same superior level as those of the FDA. But so far

their warnings about safety concerns have done nothing to slow

down the sales of Canadian drugs and re-imported U.S. drugs to

U.S. citizens. According to the Canadian Broadcasting

Corporation, we bought more than $1 billion worth of drugs from

Canada last year.

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The jaw dropper

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And here's where it gets REALLY interesting.

According to a CBS evening news " Inside Story " report last week,

Boston and New Hampshire and all the buying power of individual

U.S. citizens are very small potatoes compared to the largest

U.S. customer of Canadian pharmaceuticals: The U.S. government.

If your jaw hit the floor when you read that, then you look

exactly the way I looked when I saw the CBS report. I thought

I'd heard it all, but this not only takes the cake, it takes the

whole buffet.

The Department of Defense and the Veterans' Administration are

just two government agencies that are allowed a special waiver

to purchase drugs from Canada or any other country; something

that citizens like you and me can't do. Not to mention Boston

and New Hampshire.

In the CBS report, Valentino - a spokesman for the

Department of Veterans' Affairs - was asked to estimate how much

his department has spent on foreign drugs. He said, " It's been

in the hundreds of millions of dollars over the last several

years. "

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Goose, meet gander

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So in spite of the supposed " safety concerns " the FDA says are

presented by these foreign drugs, millions of veterans and

others through the Defense Department have been supplied with

Canadian drugs for years.

Of course, what we're witnessing in all of this is some of the

most cynical cronyism you can imagine. Congressmen, regulators,

and lobbyists accommodate one another as they please, but when

it comes to the needs of citizens, or cities and states

struggling in the current economic climate, we're given

restrictions and left to our own devices.

A couple of centuries ago a certain tea party in Boston helped

trigger a revolution.

Keep your eyes open for a harbor full of Lipitor, Vioxx and

Viagra.