Public Health expert warns that drug importation will undermine the health of American Hispanics

This editorial by Dr. Yanira Cruz was published in Morning Consult on January 18, 2018. Cruz, who is the president and CEO of the National Hispanic Council on Aging and holds a doctorate in Public Health, writes that,

“For Hispanics, the notion of opening up our borders for imported drugs presents a particularly acute threat. Latino families are already afflicted with a ‘perfect storm’ of comparatively poor health and limited access to health care resources. Adding an increased threat of counterfeit – and potentially dangerous – drugs to that mix would be nothing short of devastating.”

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WHO just exacerbated the counterfeit drug problem

In late November, the World Health Organization (WHO) published a landmark report on the global counterfeit drug epidemic. Unfortunately, the WHO glossed over a major cause of the crisis — instability in the European Union’s drug supply chain — and actually gave the European Union cover by applauding its deeply flawed approach to combating counterfeit drugs. We need a better strategy to win the war on counterfeit drugs.

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Importation Will “endanger 1000s of innocent lives…in Arizona and throughout the nation,” Retired Police Commander Warns

According to retired Phoenix Police Commander Tim Hampton, who wrote this editorial in White Mountain Independent on December 15, 2017, legalizing drug importation will help “criminal organizations . . . exploit weaknesses in the law to traffic narcotics,” and increase the flow of counterfeit pills cut with fentanyl into the country: “The drug importation bill would weaken America’s anti-drug defenses and endanger thousands of innocent lives — here in Arizona and throughout the nation.”

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Professor Warns That WHO Report Saying 10% Of Medicines Are Fake Is A Warning Sign

Tim Mackey, Ph.D., is an associate professor at the University of California, San Diego, School of Medicine; a fellow at the World Health Organization Collaborating Center for Governance, Accountability and Transparency in the Pharmaceutical Sector; director of Health Care Research and Policy at the University of California, San Diego, Extension; and director of the Global Health Policy Institute. In this op-ed that appeared in STAT News, he warns that the recent report by WHO that estimates that 10% of drugs in the world is fake should be a warning sign…

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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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Proposed Bill Could Fuel the Opioid Epidemic

George M. Karavetsos’ editorial was published in The Hill on October 30, 2017. George M. Karavetsos is a partner with the global law firm DLA Piper. He formerly served as the director of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s Office of Criminal Investigations and chief of the Narcotics Section and the executive assistant U.S. attorney in the Southern District of Florida…

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Retail Association of Nevada Exec: drug importation puts Americans lives at risk

In her October 18, 2017 editorial for the Las Vegas Sun, Liz MacMenamin, vice president of government affairs for the Retail Association of Nevada, offers facts about drug importation:

Though this may appear as a simple and innocent fix to the problem of high drug prices, the reality is starkly different. Importation threatens the safety of all Americans and the security of the United States’ airtight pharmaceutical quality control system.

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