First Day, First Blog

Welcome to my very first posting on my very first blog. I'm not sure what form this blog will take, or how often I'll post. It seems there are so many things bubbling in my brain. I'd like to pour a few out onto a page and leave them there for others to stumble into.

So I guess I'd like to start my blog with a blurb on Canadian medications, a topic near and dear to my heart.

First, why are Canadian drugs so much cheaper than American drugs? I mean, even with the exchange rate taken into account, they're cheaper. Here it is in a short phrase: Price controls. Yes, government mandated price controls. The government in most developed countries practices price controls because the government is the single biggest purchaser of those drugs. Just like you and me, those governments can't afford to spend as much for them as the big Pharma would like them to. In the United States, government purchase of medication is limited to Medicaid and VA prescriptions, so there's no budgetary incentive to control the prices.

This is good news to big Pharma. They make very little profit in other countries, to such an extent that they have moved much of their research to the United States. Yes, we in this country are floating the rest of the world when it comes to supporting big Pharma in its quest for ever increasing earnings growth.

Your will no doubt hear spokesmen for Pharma claiming that the high price of new drugs is due to the enormous development costs of these medications. And it's true-new drug development is hideously expensive. But a quick look at your average Pharma company's Income Statement shows that they are spending at least as much in marketing as they are in research and development.

So, how about those drugs from Canada? Both big Pharma and the current administration claim that there are safety issues of the gravest concern. It's certainly true that the FDA is the single toughest government agency in the world to get approvals for new medications through. (Heck, it drives Pharma nuts, because the process is so long and cuts into their profits) But pre-authorization hoops a drug must jump through are only part of the story. Some important issues aren't even revealed in pre-release testing because they happen so rarely, they're just not picked up. So, you need to look for evidence in Canada after the drugs have been released for a while.

Are people dying and suffering from dreadful safety problems in Canada? I see no evidence of it. It's not like there's some big cover-up either, since their press is at least as free as ours. You'd have thought SOMEONE would have heard of it by now if lots of people were being hurt. So, no, I really don't think there is a major issue with drugs from Canada. Mind you, I'm not so quick to trust Mexico, most of the third world and parts of Europe. Probably safe: Canada, Great Britain, Netherlands, Germany, Scandinavia (and all its parts), possibly France, New Zealand, Australia and Japan. The beauty of buying from Canada is it's so close, English is acceptable, and if you want, you can use it as an excuse to visit what is really a very nice country, after all.

Interestingly, a lot of drugs go through the approval process sooner in Canada than in the US, and their patents expire sooner as well. This means that some items are even cheaper in Canada by virtue of being generic. Watch out, though--just like anywhere else, prices will vary. I recommend googling "Canada Pharmacy" and doing a little price comparison before purchasing.

Here's an interesting example I took advantage of myself recently. Both my husband and I have taken Zyrtec for a while, and generally have found it the most effective of the non-sedating antihistamines. Sadly, when Claritin (high on my list of most irritating medications) went generic and over the counter, our insurance company decided to move Zyrtec to the third, most expensive, tier of medication and leave the largely ineffective (for us) Allegra on second tier. All of a sudden, we went from $40 for 3 months of pills to $105. I checked it out on the web and found out that in Canada, Zyrtec (Reactine there) has gone generic AND over the counter, which meant I could get it way cheap and without a prescription! Right now I'm paying about as much as I did before and taking a medication that really works. Good thing, too, because otherwise the ragweed would just about be killing me.

So my advice to patients and anyone else who wants to know is to take the time to look into getting drugs from Canada. It may be well worth it!