HHS Report Raises Safety and Savings Concerns About Commercial Importation; Consumers Have Options for Safe Savings at Home

HHS Report Raises Safety and Savings Concerns About Commercial Importation; Consumers Have Options for Safe Savings at Home

Partnership for Safe Medicines Releases an Rx 'Safe Savings' Guide to Help People Find Safe Alternatives to Risky, High-Cost Importation Schemes

AUSTIN, Texas, Dec. 21 /PRNewswire/ -- The U.S. Surgeon General's report delivered to Congress today questions the safety and savings from massive, commercial drug importation programs. The Partnership for Safe Medicines, a coalition of patient, physician, pharmacist, university, industry and professional organizations, says the report raises concerns about whether safety issues can ever be adequately addressed and points to the need for other options for purchasing safe, life-saving drugs.

In conjunction with the government's report, the Partnership released a guide for consumers on ways to lower their prescription bill while assuring that the drugs they buy are safe.

Marv Shepherd, a member of the Partnership for Safe Medicines' board and a pharmacy educator at the University of Texas at Austin said that no safeguards could ever stop counterfeit drugs from finding their way to America's medicine cabinets if large-scale, commercial importation is permitted.

"Any kind of elaborate regulatory importation regime would have the effect of adding costs to drugs so that in the end, drugs would be just as expensive, slower to get here and, possibly, not as safe," Dr. Shepherd said. "The fact is, there are options for safe savings on medications here in the United States that do not also open the door to danger."

As a positive, domestic alternative to risky importation schemes, Dr. Shepherd and the Partnership released a prescription drug "Safe Savings" guide that offers American consumers tips on accessing safe and affordable drugs. The guide includes information on public and private patient assistance programs, comparison shopping and safely buying drugs online.

* Government and Private Assistance Programs -- Medicare Approved Drug
Discount Cards are saving seniors 10-25 percent off drug bills. Sites
like HelpingPatients.org and TogetherRx.com compile pharmaceutical
patient assistance programs that offer deeply discounted, or free,
prescription drugs.

* Comparison Shopping -- Take your list of medications to multiple
pharmacies to find the best price. For a single medication, try online
price comparison tools like PillBot.com and DestinationRx.com. Several
states also offer comparison shopping websites where you can find the
price of popular medicines at pharmacies across your state. Log onto
http://www.safemedicines.org/ for links to these sites.

* Buying online -- Research shows that consumers can save between 20-50
percent off retail prices when purchasing medications online, but look
for the VIPPS safety seal to guide you to safe online pharmacies.



A complete copy of the "Safe Savings" guide is available on the Partnership's website at http://www.safemedicines.org/. It will also be distributed by Partnership members at upcoming conferences, through local senior and community centers and state departments of aging.

An overview of the growing problems with counterfeit drugs in the global medicine supply shows:

* Up to 10 percent of all medications are thought to be counterfeit, with
more than a third of these circulating in industrialized countries.

* In July 2004, the FDA tested drugs from an online pharmacy claiming to
be Canadian but found that the site operator was based in Belize selling
drugs made in China. All of the drugs tested, Viagra, Lipitor and
Ambien, were fake.

* Experts estimate the global trade in counterfeit medicines to be about
$35 billion.

* FDA has seen investigations of counterfeit drugs increase fourfold since
the late 1990s.

About the Partnership for Safe Medicines


The Partnership for Safe Medicines is a coalition of patient, physician, pharmacist, university, industry and other professional organizations committed to the safety of prescription drugs and protecting consumers against unapproved, counterfeit, substandard, mishandled or otherwise unsafe medicines. For more information, visit us online at http://www.safemedicines.org/.


Source: Partnership for Safe Medicines

CONTACT: Jonathan Osmundsen, +1-202-339-0111, or
josmundsen@ignitioncom.com, for Partnership for Safe Medicines

Web site: http://www.safemedicines.org/


-------
Profile: intent