Word: fda
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
While there is no doubt that counterfeit and adulterated medicines--some potentially injurious, possibly even lethal--are sold over the Internet by unscrupulous vendors, a TIME investigation suggests the FDA'S actions against Canadian imports have been part of a concerted campaign to simultaneously discredit its counterpart agency in Canada, provoke fear among American consumers who buy their drugs there, blunt an exploding political movement among local and state governments to begin wholesale drug buys in Canada and ultimately preserve the inflated prices charged U.S. consumers and taxpayers...
...FDA drive within the U.S. to shut down the Canadian pipeline has coincided with a campaign by drugmakers to pressure the Canadian government to cut off drug sales to the U.S. At the same time, the big U.S. drug companies have warned Canadian pharmacies that their supplies of all prescription drugs will be halted if they sell to U.S. citizens, thereby threatening to deprive Canadian citizens of access to drugs. Explaining the industry's opposition to American purchases of Canadian drugs, a spokesman for the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) told TIME, "The FDA has said consistently...
...purchase of prescription drugs from Canada. An amendment sanctioning sales to U.S. pharmacies was sponsored by Representative Gil Gutknecht, a Minnesota Republican, and approved in July by a vote of 243 to 186. Notably, Gutknecht's language provided ample protection for consumers--long the argument cited by the FDA and the pharmaceutical industry for prohibiting Canadian drug purchases. The provision authorized U.S. pharmacies to import prescription drugs made in Canada and other industrialized countries as long as manufacturers used counterfeit-resistant technologies and the drugs were approved by the FDA...
Even while addressing the issue of safety, Gutknecht pointed to what he believed to be the main motivation for resistance to such legislation: "Now, when we talk about safety, I think the real question is, Who are we protecting from whom? Who is really being protected by our FDA? More and more of us are coming to the conclusion that the only people really being protected are the big executives of the large pharmaceutical companies. We ask ourselves, Why are Americans, the world's best customers, paying the world's highest prices? ... I am a Republican. There is nothing wrong...
...companies are backed by some serious muscle. The FDA, charged with assuring the safety of the nation's prescription drugs, has sided with the industry, coming down hard on the Canadians. "The drug-safety laws that Congress has charged FDA to enforce require that drugs be proven to be safe and effective to be legal," says commissioner Mark McClellan. "While FDA will continue to do all it can to make safe and affordable drugs available, we are also committed to enforcing the law against those ... [who] import illegal, unapproved and potentially risky medicines...