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Analysis: FDA seizes Canadian Rx shipments:

[World News]: By AL SWANSON, UPI Urban Affairs Correspondent CHICAGO, March 10 : Some U.S. consumers who ordered cheaper prescription drugs from Canadian pharmacies are getting letters from the Food and Drug Administration instead of their shipments of medicine.

The FDA has seized packages of arthritis, cholesterol and other medicines imported from Canada through I-SaveRx, a five-state prescription-drug program federal regulators have said is illegal.

The letter received by patients reads: "A mail shipment addressed to you from a foreign country is being held by the Post Office at the request of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration" and cites possible federal import violations."These laws are designed to protect you from, among other things, unsafe or misrepresented foods, drugs, biologics, cosmetics, devices and other articles," the letter says.

Scores of shipments of prescription drugs ordered from mail-order pharmacies in Canada through I-SaveRx have been confiscated.Seizures escalated to nearly 25 percent of all mail-order drug shipments from some online pharmacies in the first two weeks of February.More than $1 billion in cut-rate prescription drugs was ordered from Canada in 2004. The FDA did little to disrupt the cross-border drug sales to individuals, permitting medication intended for personal use to enter the country.

The FDA denies it is targeting the I-SaveRx program.A spokesman said regulators have been seizing drugs that could be easily counterfeited.

"I won't say the FDA has targeted I-SaveRx, but that's an unbelievable coincidence," G.Anthony Howard, president and chief executive officer of CanaRx Services Inc.,, an Internet pharmacy in Ontario, told the Chicago Tribune.

Illinois, Wisconsin, Kansas, Missouri and Vermont, participate in I-SaveRx, a program created by Illinois Gov.Rod Blagojevich six months ago to save consumers money by facilitating the filling of prescriptions by pharmacies in Canada and Europe.

The drug importation program got off to a slow start filling 4,700 prescriptions since October.

A spokeswoman for Blagojevich said offshore pharmacies re-sent drug shipments to consumers whose packages were confiscated.

For two years, Blagojevich, a Democrat, and Minnesota Gov.Tim Pawlenty, a Republican, have led efforts by states and cities to win FDA approval of drug imports from Canada and Europe, where price controls keep costs of some brand-name drugs 30 percent to 70 percent below prices in the United States.Generic drugs often are less expensive in the United States.

Blagojevich ran afoul of the FDA last fall when he purchased $2.5 million in unapproved flu vaccine from a European supplier at the height of the national vaccine shortage.The doses of vaccine were never delivered because the FDA would not approve the imports, leaving Illinois on the hook to pay suppliers for flu vaccine it never received.

The governors say many of the most-prescribed drugs in the United States are made in laboratories outside the country, are safe and the only difference is price.Pawlenty has proposed Indian tribes set up pharmacies on reservations to import prescription drugs without FDA oversight.

Some pharmaceutical giants like Pfizer and GlaxoSmithKline restricted or cut off supplies of popular drugs to online pharmacies selling medication under its cost in the United States.

At the same time, Canadian Health Minister Ujjal Dosanjh has proposed major changes in the way Canadian pharmacies fill prescriptions, including a law requiring patients to be examined by a Canadian doctor.Dosanjh has repeatedly said Canada, a nation of 34 million, cannot be the drugstore for the United States.

Recent surveys have found more seniors are becoming concerned about the safety of prescription drugs from foreign countries.

A survey of 1,201 adults in early February by the Kaiser Family Foundation found 65 percent of respondents favored more government regulation of prescription-drug pricing.Nearly 50 percent supported limits on advertising of prescription drugs.

Nearly three-quarters of the respondents to the Kaiser Health Poll Report blamed marketing and advertising expenses for the rapid prescription-drug price inflation, while 22 percent said price increases were caused mostly by research and development costs.

Seven out of 10 seniors surveyed by Luntz Research Companies for The Seniors Coalition, a non-profit conservative advocacy organization with more than 4 million members, opposed importation of medicines from foreign sources outside Canada.

The TSC study said prescription drugs were coming into the U.S. from suppliers in Australia, New Zealand, Estonia, Latvia, Poland, Greece and other members of the European Union.

"Not only does the research show a broad-reaching, deep concern for their safety, but it also indicates that, when given the full rundown on these proposals, seniors do not approve of open drug importation," said Flora Green, national spokeswoman for the Washington-based coalition.

"The issue here is not whether Americans want cheaper prescription drugs -- heaven knows we all want the things we buy to come at a cheaper price tag," Green said in a statement."The issue is whether or not seniors are willing to allow Congress to jeopardize their safety to help them save a buck on prescription drugs; and our research shows seniors are not yet willing to trade their assurance of safety for a few dollars at the check-out stand."

-- Copyright 2005 by United Press International.

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