• bhmnscmm@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    CEO of the powerful trade group PhRMA—Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America—said in a statement that the group is “deeply concerned with the FDA’s reckless decision to approve Florida’s state importation plan” and claimed importation “poses a serious danger to public health.”

    Yeah right. These Canadian drugs will definitely pose a health risk to Americans. Suuuuure. They’re definitely not worried they’ll have less money to line their pockets with.

  • Wahots@pawb.social
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    1 year ago

    Florida needs to grow a pair and advocate for universal Healthcare or at least statewide bulk medicine purchases. Canada shouldn’t bail Florida out for being a dumbass.

    Pick the easy solution. Many other countries have.

    • be_excellent_to_each_other@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      First we’d have to wrest control of florida from the grip of the “I got mine” “Slavery was a benefit to the slaves” and “Don’t say gay” maga and/or boomer assholes who control the state from the top down.

      Then and only then would there be the slightest possibility that anyone in power in Florida would advocate for anything that would actually help anyone.

      Until then it’s all grandstanding and the Gilead express.

  • 800XL@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    These drugs will get sold in the US at the same price as the rest. No way will big pharma be undercut.

    • mosiacmango@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      Nah. Plently of middlemen would be happy to arbitage a drug in canada that costs $20 and sell a million doses to Florida for $25. Aint no one gonna buy those million doses for the same $340 they can pay in the US.

      Eventually, market forces will force the middleman to take a small profit at most, as they would be undercut by another middleman who would. Drug prices would pretty closely match at that point.

      • pacmondo@sh.itjust.works
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        1 year ago

        In a world of lots of small middlemen, sure. But in a world where you only have a handful of middlemen that can all collude with eachother to fix prices high? looks pointedly at several entire markets

        • BraveSirZaphod@kbin.social
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          1 year ago

          Sure, you could have a cartel, but cartels only really work in industries that have very high barriers to entry, like oil production. Non-members have every incentive to undercut the cartel, and if it’s reasonably easy to enter the market, someone will do that.

          It’s not particularly hard to buy stuff from Canada and re-sell it.

          • pacmondo@sh.itjust.works
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            1 year ago

            Any random stuff from Canada, yes. But as I understand it there are a few extra hoops at the border for large quantities of prescription medications.

      • 800XL@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        That’s the beauty, they won’t have a choice. When it comes to pharma, the US is 110% anti-consumer.

  • Xavier
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    1 year ago

    I would welcome US and other countries to purchase drug made in canada. Whiles drugs imported by Canada should be restricted or some kind of reexportation fee should be levied to avoid shortages.

    There are several manufacturer based in Canada such as Apotex Inc., Johnson&Johnson/Actelion, AbbVie, Novartis, Merck/Cubist, Pfizer/Hospira, Bayer, Roche, AstraZeneca, GlaxoSmithKline, etc… Statistics from 2020

    I would love to see Canada become a major influence in making high quality generic drugs more afordable to every one on the planet.

  • Silverseren@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    Also, this sort of unregulated drug importation plan rather consistently results in fake drugs and low performing drugs being supplied by any company that can get away with it.

    The same thing happened a while back when Bernie Sanders was pushing a similar unregulated importation of cancer drugs, which had already prior to that had an entire batch of placebo drugs get through customs. Cory Booker pointed out this issue, but Sanders (and his stans) claimed Booker was just shilling for Big Pharma by…wanting to regulate Big Pharma.

    • mosiacmango@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      Change only happen when the pressure is on. Allowing importation of Canadian drugs would put amazing pressure on the US sellers, even if some were counterfeit. The latter problem is solvable, at least through legitimate channels.

      Insulin is now $35/month in the US because the IRA changed the law to cap the price for Medicare. Suddenly, big pharma saw a threat and now insulin is $35/month for nearly everyone, including people on regular insurance. The goverment took related action, and the phara companies read the tea leaves and suddenly dropped prices. The law going into effect and the “voluntary” price drop happened the exact same day for a reason.

      Bernie didnt expect “get drugs from Canada” to be the end game. Of course he also wanted to regulate big pharma. He just understands how to apply pressure.

      • Silverseren@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        Regulation and price caps are much better than unregulated drugs getting pumped into the market.

        It was an incredibly dumb idea and anyone who knew anything about regulatory markets and pharmaceutical drug importation pointed out that it was a terrible plan.

        You’re really trying to cover for Bernie too much. When it comes to a number of topics, he isn’t actually that smart and doesn’t know how the law or governmental systems work. He’s been called out for that going back decades and he just uses his big sound bites about the big banks and big pharma to distract from him not actually having any of the actual specifics on how to enact things, just the big plan to do so somehow.

        • mosiacmango@lemm.ee
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          1 year ago

          Yeah, regulations and price caps are the correct end game. When exactly did Cory Booker get those done? I must have missed his “big pharma price cap plan” going into action. Can you link the law that he passed? Funny how he only brought up the finish line and did nothing to actually get us there.

          Meanwhile, Bernie proposed a “next step” that would have made it clear to all Americans how badly we are being ripped off, which would have, get this, applied politcal pressure to pass price caps and regulation. Almost like building up politcal capital take time, effort and something to focus on.

          You think Bernie would have voted agasint regulating big pharma? Fuck no. Man has been calling for them to be regulated since before Booker was even a senator.

          I dont need to carry water for Bernie. Man’s been carrying his own water and then some for decades. The rest of his peers and the country at large still havent caught up.

        • Hacksaw
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          1 year ago

          Yeah, those Canadians have no drug regulations at all, definitely not more regulation than the US. I was on a trip to Canada and needed tylenol when I opened inside was just poutine. So I got more sick, eventually needed a blood transfusion, in the IV bag was maple syrup. I became diabetic from unregulated Canadian health care, thank goodness for the well regulated American system I was paying $340 for insulin like a patriot until those commie bastards changed the price to $35. So now I mail a cheque for $300 to big Pharma everytime I buy a dose to keep the market free!