November 01, 2007

The august NY Times reported yesterday that the Chinese chemical firm "Honor International Pharmtech was accused of shipping counterfeit drugs into the United States" even as it "was openly marketing its products in October to thousands of buyers [in Milan] at the world's biggest trade show for pharmaceutical ingredients."

Yeah, yeah, but so what? After all, the prices are low, and isn't that what really counts? So what's the problem? Actually, there isn't one, in the context of the long-running debate over the importation of foreign drugs subject to price controls overseas, except in the case of contagious diseases. If someone takes a fake or adulterated drug because the price looked good, well, isn't that really their problem, the issue of infecting others aside? The proponents of parallel trade in pharmaceuticals---again, importation of "cheap" drugs from overseas---fail even to consider that problem, in their rush to subsidize their constituencies at the expense of others.

More generally, they are keen to ignore all the problems---contagion, the dilution of brand-name capital and the resulting implications for trust in the health-care system, the inevitable horror stories for individual patients given adulterated drugs without any warning at all, the bonanza for the lawyers---as they pursue price "discounts" with no consideration of any adverse implications at all. And they are the ones demanding truth in advertising from everyone else. Have they no shame? That question answers itself.

Posted by Benjamin Zycher at November 1, 2007 12:44 PM

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