By OLIVER MOORE
Globe and Mail Update
Canada and the United States have signed an agreement making it easier to
share information on Internet pharmacies, which some accuse of peddling
unsafe or inappropriate drugs.
Mark McClellan, Commissioner at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration,
unveiled the memorandum of understanding in Ottawa Tuesday. He was flanked
by Health Canada deputy minister Diane Gorman and U.S. Ambassador to Canada
Paul Cellucci.
"I'm not saying that [all] drugs within Canada are unsafe," Mr. McClellan
stressed to reporters, but he added that there are some safety issues that
need to be addressed.
"We hope that Canadian authorities are going to take action to ensure the
safety of Americans and Canadians," he told a televised news conference. "I
hope and I trust that Health Canada will appropriately follow up and look
into these potential safety problems and take appropriate action."
Millions of Americans are thought to buy drugs in Canada or via Canadian
Internet pharmacies, where prices of well-known products are believed to be
considerably less than in the United States. The price difference is largely
ascribed to Canadian price-controls, the mass purchasing power of
public-sector drug plans and the lower value of the Canadian dollar.
Although a recent study by the Wharton School suggests that the gap between
drug prices in Canada and the United States is much narrower than usually
thought, four multinational drug companies have cut back on shipments to
Canada, apparently hoping to stem the flow of their product back into the
United States.
Tuesday's agreement between Ottawa and Washington comes only days after the
National Association of Pharmacy Regulatory Authorities, a Canadian body,
called for a ban on Net pharmacies until the governments involved can set up
"effective regulation" of these practices.
The Canadian Internet Pharmacy Association reacted angrily to the NAPRA
move, and on Tuesday reiterated its position that there is nothing
inherently unsafe about conducting a pharmacy on-line.
"We would welcome all additional regulatory steps to make sure that
everything is safe," Dave MacKay, head of CIPA told CBC Newsworld.
"[There] may well be rogue, unscrupulous vendors who provide medication
without prescription, without patient medical history. We know they're out
there, so as an industry we welcome any regulatory framework that would
potentially [winkle the rogues] out."
Mr. MacKay took comfort from the U.S. position that the Canadian system is
generally safe. "Canadian mail-order pharmacies ... take the safe practice
that we have here in Canada and make available for American citizens."
With a report from The Globe and Mail's Leonard Zehr
