NPR had a story last night on this issue. The big Pharma (Pfizer et al) are cutting off supplies of meds to Canada to intimidate Canadian pharmacies from shipping to US - it's very similar to situation in Mexico.

The major thing that people have to understand is that few of the patented meds coming from big Pharma are any better than older generic equivalents. Modern pharmaceutical miracles are 90% marketing hype.

Ask your doctor for a generic equivalent - no where is this more true than in blood pressure meds and cholesterol medications - none of the expensive patented stuff has absolutely been proven superior to older meds in efficacy. It's true that pateneted lipid solubile statins like Lipitor and Zocor may be 10+% better at making the numbers, but no one has proven that making the numbers is why statins are successful - two years after 'Scientific American' first published it, 'TIME' is now stating that the statins' anti-inflamatory ability may be more important than making the cholesterol numbers.

Sorry for the digression, but except in very unique cases best med is probably a generic, rather than a patented budget-buster. And if the genric is cheaper in Canada go for it. Big Pharma is like the movie industry, they can only prosper with block-busters and block-busters are usually a result of marketing, not significantly improved efficacy.

It is clear that the FDA, first and foremost, wants to protect big pharma block-busters. It's a total, shameful hoax perpetrated by the Federal-Pharmaceutical consortium and they should be ashamed. Meanwhile many states on the verge of bankruptcy are still struggling to find cost-effective decisions even id they are from Canada.

You have a clear choice in November 2004, think about it.