Word: phrma
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...part, the pharmaceutical industry would like to direct attention away from Canada and the debate in Washington. Says the PhRMA representative: "There are safer, better ways to resolve the access problem, to help patients who are having difficulty. You've got the patient-assistance and -discount programs. You've got, as a third option, the fact that as part of competitive marketing, our companies provide free samples of medicines, all types of medicines, to hundreds of thousands of doctors all over the country. And quite often those doctors give those free samples to patients who are having difficulty...
...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 and repeatedly over the years, through both the Clinton and Bush administrations, that there are safety risks and this shouldn't happen and in fact it's illegal...
...administering drugs, often in hospitals, are the fourth-or sixth-leading cause of death in the U.S., depending on how the cases are counted. By comparison, the risk from defective, counterfeit or mislabeled drugs from Canada is presumed but unproved by any evidence. When TIME asked a spokesman for PhRMA, the drug-industry association, if there were any cases of Canadian drug imports harming Americans, he said, "Yes, I believe there have been some. I believe FDA has some on its website." In fact, the FDA has no such record. Over and over, congressional committees have grilled FDA officials...
...does not make an issue of that.) An academic study in 2001, partly funded by the drug industry, estimated that it costs an average of $802 million to bring a single new drug to market, though that number is disputed by consumer advocates. Says Alan F. Holmer, president of PhRMA: "Developing new medicines requires cutting-edge science, enormous investment of time and money, and willingness to commit those resources in the face of expensive failure after failure. None of this is compatible with price controls." But no one really knows how the money is spent. Indeed, the industry has refused...
...refusal to even consider a regulatory framework, isn't the answer either. No one disputes that while there are many legitimate online pharmacies, the Internet at the moment also has its share of charlatans and hucksters offering dubious and possibly dangerous products. When TIME asked a PhRMA spokesman why the industry simply did not designate one or more Internet pharmacies as approved sites, he replied, "We really--we actually really don't have a position on that. It's the FDA that is investigating the Internet pharmacies and has some concerns about...