Posted At Sun-Sentinel
BY : Howard Goodman
Joe Belport, is a retired pharmacist who lives in Delray Beach. He still plays golf at age 83, but he's had his share of health problems: bladder cancer, a prostate condition.
"The medicines keep me alive," he says.
After 50 years in the business, the guy knows something about safety and savings in prescription drugs.
And he saw no harm in ordering the prostate drug Flomax from a Canadian mail-order house earlier this month. He paid a dollar a pill -- less than half the price at the local drug store.
But wait. Isn't it risky to import these drugs, as the U.S. Food and Drug Administration contends?
"Baloney," Belport says. "The packages are the same as you get here."
His shipment, however, never came. It was intercepted by U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
And when Belport learned that, all the idiocy of government policies on prescription drugs hit him in the face.
"I became irate, because when it hits home, it's like being slapped," he said.
Belport's not the only customer who's been jolted by what appears to be a crackdown on prescription-drug imports.
I spoke to some of them.
Mariane Kulik, 77, had to rush out to buy a month's supply of the blood thinner Plavix for $132 because Customs blocked her usual order ($239 for three months' worth).
Albert Klugman, 79, said his wife's thyroid medicine, Synthroid, never showed up.
Vivian Fishler, 74, had to buy an emergency three-month supply of Synthroid at a local CVS for $69 because her order from Winnipeg ($25) won't be arriving.
As they see it, Uncle Sam is trying to force them into the new Medicare prescription-drug plan -- that Bush administration boondoggle that's gotten off to what even new House Majority Leader John Boehner has called a "horrendous" start.
A Customs spokesman in Miami says he's unaware of an increase in enforcement. Christina Pearson, spokeswoman for the Health and Human Services Department, in Washington, D.C., said "that if Customs is doing additional enforcement, it is unrelated to the Medicare prescription-drug benefit, I can assure you of that."
But it sure looks fishy.
Jeffery Claymore, president of Claymore Pharmacy in Winnipeg, said authorities used to intercept less than 1 percent of Claymore's packages. Since late December, interdictions are up to 3 percent to 5 percent.
Minit Drugs in Calgary saw seizures soar almost tenfold since December, the company said in a news release.
True, the imports are illegal. But for years, the government has looked the other way.
Last week, two congressmen demanded an explanation for the "unannounced" and "irresponsible" policy change. Rep. Gil Gutknecht, R-Minn., said the apparent crackdown seems to violate the will of Congress, which for three years has denied the FDA money to block the importation of prescription drugs for personal use, the Los Angeles Times reported.
The more we learn about the Medicare prescription plan -- enacted after a $78 million lobbying push by Big Pharma -- the worse it looks. Senior citizens are contending with a confusing array of drug plans and a pay scale that's heavily tilted toward the drug companies, not the consumer.
As you'll recall, our representatives deliberately prevented Medicare from using its market power to negotiate lower prices with the pharmaceutical industry -- as the Veterans Administration does, as Canada and other nations do. Given the chance to help average Americans, Congress kissed up to the industry instead.
Senior citizens aren't out to defy the law. They're just trying to cope.
"I wouldn't get drugs from Canada," Kulik, of Delray Beach, said, "if there was any reasonable way of getting them here."
It sure seems odd that almost everything comes from abroad at cut-rate prices. Clothing, groceries, baseballs.
