HLTH 644 Importation of Prescription Drugs from Canada Paper Topic: The government would like to import prescription drugs from Canada to reduce cost to pa
HLTH 644 Importation of Prescription Drugs from Canada Paper Topic: The government would like to import prescription drugs from Canada to reduce cost to patients. You work for a drug company and they have has asked you to show why this would not be beneficial.Hint: Focus only on cons (OPPOSE) Posted on Blackboard
The importation of prescription drugs from Canada to The United States will be a
problem and it has more disadvantages that make the importation to be a bad choice. The reason
why importation would not be beneficial is that it will reduce supply and increased prices,
consumers from the importing country would face many of the consequences. This includes a
high risk of dangerous drugs. For example, the CBC (2019) reports that although Canadian drugs
have always been safe, but they cannot be trusted anymore. For instance, the importation of
drugs has increased in various parts of the world, and Health Canada, cannot ascertain the quality
and safety of drugs leaving the border, mainly due to a lack of sufficient resources. This makes
the undertaking a risky one. Although Canada is effective in promoting the safety of its citizens,
the foreign government is not in apposition to monitor, trace, and regulate the drugs that leave
the country. This means that most of the drugs that pass-through Canada does not originate in the
country and can come from other sources, leading to mishandling and contamination. This puts
the patients from the importing country at risk (Schoen, 2017).
Ensuring that patients receive access to the medication they need is a good thing but
allowing the importation of unapproved drugs from Canada or other countries would be the
wrong choice. There have been growing cases of counterfeiting in the drug industry, and in many
cases, the counterfeit medicine bears the logo and the label of the government, making it visually
indistinguishable from the genuine one. Reports from WHO (2018) show that approximately
10% of drugs worldwide are counterfeit with those imported by developing countries accounting
to 50%. Also, the report shows that counterfeiters have become more sophisticated, and this puts
additional risk to the patients safety.
Approving the importation of prescription drugs could encourage Internet purchases. For
example, online sites maintain high anonymity, and it might be difficult to reach the persons
responsible for the online business. Also, customers may not be able to distinguish legitimate and
illegitimate websites or whether a licensed pharmacy owns the website. Another problem relates
to a lack of quality assurance in terms of the contents or ingredients of imported drugs (Shoen,
2017). Imported drugs may contain dangerous concentrations of active ingredients, as well as an
unknown concentration of other ingredients. The manufacturing method used cannot be verified,
and the drugs could be ineffective or unsafe, causing serious harm and fatal consequences to the
consumers.
References
CBC. (2019). U.S. demand is threatening Canada’s drug supply groups warn feds. CBC News.
Retrieved from https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/american-demand-canada-drugsupply-1.5226871
FDA. (2018). Imported Drugs Raise Safety Concerns. U.S Food and Drug Administration.
Retrieved from https://www.fda.gov/drugs/drug-information-consumers/imported-drugsraise-safety-concerns
Schoen, D. (2017). The FDA Is right, prescription drug importation is dangerous. Forbes.
Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/sites/dougschoen/2017/01/23/the-fda-is-rightprescription-drug-importation-is-dangerous/#757ec41e3fe2
Thurton, D. (2019). Shortages feared as the U.S. looks to Canada for cheaper prescription drugs.
CBC News. Retrieved from https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/us-drug-plan-canadianshortage-1.5232360
WHO. (2018). Substandard and falsified medical products. World Health Organization.
Retrieved from https://www.who.int/en/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/substandard-andfalsified-medical-products
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