Drug Importation and the Deadly Challenge of Screening 275 Million Packages a Year

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in their report U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the International Mail Facilities (IMFs), describes the daunting job that Customs and Border Protection (CBP) faces when attempting to weed out counterfeit medications and packages containing illicit fentanyl. In 2017, IMFs received 275 million packages. Of these, 10,000 were screened by CBP, and of those 86% contained drugs. The investigation of a suspect package is incredibly time-consuming; an experienced FDA investigator might take as long as 20 minutes to process a package containing just on product.

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Importation Has Some Huge Risks

There are certainly things we can learn from other countries’ healthcare successes, but importation is not the right approach.

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Drug Importation is Fraught with Peril

As a licensed pharmacist, I’m all too familiar with patients’ difficulties getting medications they need and their physician has prescribed. As baby boomers age, pharmacists see more patients at our counters unable to obtain needed treatments for heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, and other chronic illnesses. This issue is now being acknowledged and a healthy debate has begun over possible solutions. But one idea policymakers shouldn’t pursue is opening up our country’s secure drug supply to medicines coming from outside our borders.

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Guest View: Drugs from foreign supply chains threaten Illinois patients’ safety

John Redmond is a former FDA official. He has more than 28 years of federal law enforcement experience, ending his law enforcement career as the Special Agent in Charge of FDA’s Chicago Field Office. In this op-ed in The State Journal-Register, he warns that drug importation will expose Americans to dangerous counterfeit medicines and illegal drugs…

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The ‘Price Savings’ of Drug Importation— Unboxing the Myth

Wayne Winegarden and Nouran Ghana’s editorial was published in Inside Sources on November 15, 2017. In it, they take a hard look at the supposed “price savings” of drug importation and find that the promises do not live up to what would happen. They believe that Americans deserve a better solution than plundering the drug supply of a neighboring country…

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