July 29, 2020 video: Importation Executive Order Explainer

On July 24, 2020, the White House issued an executive order to implement three approaches to foreign drug importation, all of which involve dipping into other countries’ drug supplies and putting them in U.S. medicine cabinets. Watch this week’s video to learn more.

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Counterfeit Medicine News for the Week of July 13, 2020

Screenshot of ICE headline

PSM’s round-up this week includes fake PPE and COVID-19 treatments, deaths and hospitalizations related to hand sanitizer made of methanol, fentanyl pill seizures, and guilty pleas from two Ukrainian men who sold counterfeit cancer and hepatitis treatments to U.S. agents.

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May 20, 2020 video: Maine Importation Update

Man presenting on video

Maine submitted a state importation plan to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) recently to meet its own May 1, 2020 deadline. Given the deep structural flaws in both the idea of importing medicine from Canada and in Maine’s application to do so, PSM wonders if there is a better use of Maine taxpayer dollars than to continue to pursue this idea.

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Research Study Confirms That Cheap And Safe Drug Importation Is Not Feasible

Research Study Confirms That Cheap And Safe Drug Importation Is Not Feasible Read the abstract for Dr. Acri’s article. In March 2020, the Journal of Pharmaceutical Health Services Research, an official journal of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society, published a study by Dr. Kristina M.L. Acri née Lybecker titled “State Pharmaceutical Importation Programmes: An Analysis of…

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Freedom Of Access Act Response From The State of Maine

In June 2019, the governor of Maine signed into law LD 1272, a bill that would allow the state to establish a wholesale Canadian prescription drug importation program. On April 13, 2020, the Partnership for Safe Medicines (PSM) filed a request to receive copies of all submitted responses to Maine’s Request for Comment (RFC) for…

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How Many Tests Need to Be Performed to Know That a Batch of Pills is Safe?

Testing medicine for legitimacy is a complicated process. Across 24 different prescription medicines, the average cost to test a single dose is $2,750. However, ensuring that a batch of 100 pills is 90% certain to be safe requires testing at least 22 pills. Achieving 99.999% certainty requires even more testing, at tremendous expense. To learn more about this topic, read PSM’s summary: safedr.ug/Acri-Explained.

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Executive Director of Colon Cancer Association Warns Against “Ill-Considered Drug Importation Scheme”

This editorial by Andrew Spiegel was published in The International Business Times on March 23, 2020. Mr. Spiegel is executive director of the Global Colon Cancer Association and Chair of the World Patient Alliance. President Trump, Price Controls Can’t Combat Coronavirus The U.S. outbreak of novel coronavirus, COVID-19, has quickly evolved into a national nightmare.…

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