[Pharm-policy] PI backlash articles from Canada,

[James Love]

I've seen several backlash articles like this from Canada, over US
parallel import legislation.  One note, in nominal 1998 GNP per capital,
US was $29,240 and Canada was $19,170.  However, in GPD per capital,
expressed in purchasing power parity, which the drug companies seem to
like better, the figures are $29,605 for US, and $23,582.

Jamie


http://www.nationalpost.com/commentary/story.html?f=/stories/20001002/416494.html

October 2, 2000

We have cheap drugs because we're poorer

Fred McMahon
 National Post

At Vancouver's Granville Cinema, adults pay $9.25 per ticket. Kids pay
$5.25. Let's say Parliament passes an odd new law. It allows kids to
re-sell their tickets to adults who can catch a flick at the cheaper
price. Soon a gang of kids would be hanging around theatres, hawking
tickets. A nanosecond later, theatres would raise everyone's ticket
price to the same level.

That imaginary law may seem bizarre, but the U.S. Congress has proposed
a similarly bizarre law, that could dramatically inflate drug prices in
Canada. On average, Canadians pay less for drugs than U.S. residents. So
the U.S. Congress wants to allow Americans to import cheap drugs from
Canada.

The press has been full of a lot of baloney from Canadian health experts
about how Canada's system of "regulated" drug prices keeps prices lower
than the unregulated U.S. market. The reality is rather different. Drug
prices in Canada are cheaper for the same reason children's theatre
tickets are cheaper. Kids have less money than adults, and Canadians
have less money than Americans. Drug companies, like theatres, want to
sell as much of their product as they can at the highest possible.

   [snip]


-- 
James Love  mailto:love@cptech.org http://www.cptech.org
Consumer Project on Technology, P.O. Box 19367, Washington, DC 20036
voice 1.202.387.8030  fax  1.202.234.5176