GW Bush worries Canada would supply the USA with third world drugs and the other guy, John Kerry, wants to open the USA border so USA prescription drug problems can be taken care of.
Neither will talk about putting price controls on drugs in the USA as most other Western industrialized countries do.
Can Canada actually supply the prescription drug needs of the USA? Not a chance says this examination by the New York Times.
To begin with, there are not enough Canadians, or drugs in Canada, to make much of a dent in the United States. There are 16 million American patients on Lipitor, for instance - more than half the entire Canadian population.
Drug makers like Pfizer say they would reduce their shipments of drugs to distributors in Canada and other countries that re-export to the United States. "We are not going to supply drugs to diverters, in Canada or elsewhere," said Hank McKinnell, chairman and chief executive of Pfizer.
And Canadian health officials, fearing shortages and higher prices of their own, would probably clamp down on their own pharmacists and distributors to keep their drugs from leaking into the United States. Canadian patient-advocacy groups have already complained about shortages from the exports to the United States that already occur, even though they violate American law.
Fairly hilarious that Canada is coming up so much in the USA presidential stumping given neither candidate wants to discuss the obvious - fixing prices for prescription drugs in the USA.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/16/business...artner=homepage
Cowperson
