bi11i
01-28-2005, 03:39 PM
In a little dialogue I've been moving on with an online pharmaceutical company that supplied, at one time, Buprenorphine from outside the US comes a couple of interesting answers to some questions I had.
The company would like to remain anonymous, and so they shall, but here are a few responses to my questions:
In my asking as to why their supply of Temgesic has been cut short:Unfortunately the Temgesic is no longer available in the countries of our operation why we were forced to discontinue the product. We sincerely apologize this matter, hoping it will not cause Your visitors any inconvenience and that they will find other sources for the product. Please, if You have any further questions, do not hesitate to contact us again. The USA has put pressure, for instance through WTO, on countries to "strengthen" their regulations regarding pharmaceuticals, making them more in line with the ones in the USA. The main reason for this is not the concern for the wellbeing of the American people but for the profits of the American pharmaceutical companies. The online ordering of medication for personal use has indeed made an impact on the domestic sales of many pharmaceutical products and there are even examples of companies having stopped deliver to certain countries (for instance Canada) because most of the products come back to the USA through the "backdoor", at a lower price (as the prices in the USA are unnaturally high and the pharmaceutical companies there have higher margins than anywhere else), eroding the profits.
The American FDA has also sent their own people to, as an example, Thailand, partly funded by, for instance, Pfizer. The official reason is to assist the local authorities in finding illegal manufacturing of generic copies to patent protected products, such as Viagra. The main reason has, however, in practice been to clamp down on online pharmacies operating from these countries, mainly located in Asia. As far as we can see they have succeeded fairly well and many companies have been forced to remove products from their websites, for instance buprenorphine, move to other countries or to shut down. This move will, most certainly, continue until the congress and senate have been presented satisfactory results that they can distribute to their financial contributors, the domestic pharmaceutical companies, whereafter the business will go on, although maybe at another level, with other players, located somewhere else and offering other products.
We have a clear ambition to stay online for many years to come but, as the American authorities have targeted certain products, such as buprenorphine, phenobarbital and flunitrazepam, we have stopped supplying those.
so why target buprenorphine? is there some kind of epidemic in the US on the abuse of bup? no. profit interference, maybe?
I can also mention that we believe the move we are seing will end with much fewer suppliers, many more affiliates and most of the "semi-professional-semi-luck seeking" online pharmacies will disappear. The total scammers we will perhaps never get rid of but they will be easier to spot for an experienced online customer. In the very long run we believe the consumer will be the winner as the overpriced American market must, eventually, be normalized. Most certainly not under the sitting president but, hopefully (not for us but for the American people) during the next presidency (if a democrat at least...). Maybe we are naive, though, maybe the capital interests in the USA are too strong, maybe the American people are too unaware of the underlying facts (have Michael Moore looked into the health care system yet...?:-), only time will, as always, tell.
well so let's a plug from moore into the bup, that'd be interesting...
The company would like to remain anonymous, and so they shall, but here are a few responses to my questions:
In my asking as to why their supply of Temgesic has been cut short:Unfortunately the Temgesic is no longer available in the countries of our operation why we were forced to discontinue the product. We sincerely apologize this matter, hoping it will not cause Your visitors any inconvenience and that they will find other sources for the product. Please, if You have any further questions, do not hesitate to contact us again. The USA has put pressure, for instance through WTO, on countries to "strengthen" their regulations regarding pharmaceuticals, making them more in line with the ones in the USA. The main reason for this is not the concern for the wellbeing of the American people but for the profits of the American pharmaceutical companies. The online ordering of medication for personal use has indeed made an impact on the domestic sales of many pharmaceutical products and there are even examples of companies having stopped deliver to certain countries (for instance Canada) because most of the products come back to the USA through the "backdoor", at a lower price (as the prices in the USA are unnaturally high and the pharmaceutical companies there have higher margins than anywhere else), eroding the profits.
The American FDA has also sent their own people to, as an example, Thailand, partly funded by, for instance, Pfizer. The official reason is to assist the local authorities in finding illegal manufacturing of generic copies to patent protected products, such as Viagra. The main reason has, however, in practice been to clamp down on online pharmacies operating from these countries, mainly located in Asia. As far as we can see they have succeeded fairly well and many companies have been forced to remove products from their websites, for instance buprenorphine, move to other countries or to shut down. This move will, most certainly, continue until the congress and senate have been presented satisfactory results that they can distribute to their financial contributors, the domestic pharmaceutical companies, whereafter the business will go on, although maybe at another level, with other players, located somewhere else and offering other products.
We have a clear ambition to stay online for many years to come but, as the American authorities have targeted certain products, such as buprenorphine, phenobarbital and flunitrazepam, we have stopped supplying those.
so why target buprenorphine? is there some kind of epidemic in the US on the abuse of bup? no. profit interference, maybe?
I can also mention that we believe the move we are seing will end with much fewer suppliers, many more affiliates and most of the "semi-professional-semi-luck seeking" online pharmacies will disappear. The total scammers we will perhaps never get rid of but they will be easier to spot for an experienced online customer. In the very long run we believe the consumer will be the winner as the overpriced American market must, eventually, be normalized. Most certainly not under the sitting president but, hopefully (not for us but for the American people) during the next presidency (if a democrat at least...). Maybe we are naive, though, maybe the capital interests in the USA are too strong, maybe the American people are too unaware of the underlying facts (have Michael Moore looked into the health care system yet...?:-), only time will, as always, tell.
well so let's a plug from moore into the bup, that'd be interesting...