Physician: Sanders’ drug proposal comes with serious costs

 Dr. Terry Sellers Source: privatedetoxone.com

Dr. Terry Sellers, a Utah-based physician specializing in addiction, wrote about problems with drug importation in the Daily Herald on July 25th, 2017:

Sanders’ drug proposal comes with serious costs

Drug importation is an issue that has not yet made it onto many political “Hot Lists” but it should and likely will. As a physician specializing in addiction, it’s an issue that matters a great deal in two ways: one is my concern over the overabundant supply of opioids that is destroying lives and killing thousands; the other is my concern as a doctor over the cost of legitimate medicines.

Sen. Bernie Sanders is working toward a bipartisan coalition to bypass traditional drug distribution channels, thus to allow open purchase of pharmaceuticals from Canada and elsewhere. This is a policy that will have far-reaching, long-term negative consequences and should be rejected.

For one thing, too many politicians are too easily attracted to the typical knee-jerk “feel good” non-solution of this sort. Bernie would say that U.S. drugs are too expensive for patients and too profitable for manufacturers, and therefore unfair to consumers.

Is there a problem? Probably so, there is little doubt the cost of drugs is high and in too many cases trending upward. Does Sen. Sanders’ bill solve the problem? The answer is no, unless one only considers the issue in the most myopic terms possible. Does his policy create yet more and greater problems? Without a doubt, it does.

There are several counter-arguments that condense into a few fundamental areas: law enforcement concerns of drug supply outstripping enforcement resources; concerns that addiction clinics are already overflowing and opening the door to greater, cheaper supplies will only add to the problem; the counterfeit drugs that are disturbingly common among “Canadian” imports (which do not necessarily originate in Canada) that hit cancer patients and diabetics the hardest; that abrogating property rights will kill innovation, invention and investment.

Over my decades as a doctor, I’ve observed a number of innovating companies that research, develop, test and market lifesaving medicines. Their costs are staggering. We all eagerly consume the latest media reports about new drug breakthroughs, but as in many human endeavors, the cost of that single success is often a thousand failures. Sen. Sanders fails to account for those costs in his pricing plan.

Recent surveys taken among “millennials” indicate disturbing ignorance of market economics, along with a broadening acceptance of “socialism.” The Sanders “cost-cutting” drug plan appears to mirror this chilling trend. The idea that waving a magic wand could resolve the real drivers of drug prices is fantasy.

It is also confusing when the same federal government that imposes more than $2 billion in costs on new drug approvals then turns around and complains about consumer prices and advocates for artificial price controls.

This is not to criticize wholesale the regulatory oversight of the FDA; America sets the world standard for research and development, as well as drug safety and purity, thanks largely to the FDA professionals who oversee pharmaceuticals from development through distribution. That said, any number of reforms could address the cost of medicines better than price controls, and without collateral damage to innovation.

The medical researchers I know are driven by a desire help treat sick people; investors enable them to do it. The years or decades necessary for medical research and discovery, then to produce something that can help someone, cost dearly. Without funding and return on investment, both researcher and investor will move on to other endeavors.

Sen. Sanders’ scheme might well reduce the short-term price of drugs, but price is not the same as cost. In this case, cheaper prices will impose tremendous costs that would adversely affect the future of medicine for generations to come.