The things you learn as a translator...

[Lydia Leftcoast]

My current translation assignment is the autobiography of the head of one of the largest pharmaceutical firms in Japan. One passage offered the key to our drug price problem.

I don't have a link, of course, but basically, this head of a family-owned firm explains in the course of his autobiography that Japan, the European countries, and Canada all control prescription drug prices. Therefore, all the international Big Pharma firms are trying to flood the U.S. with their products, because it's almost the only industrialized country left that doesn't place a ceiling on drug costs.

No wonder the FDA has tried to make it illegal to buy prescription drugs from overseas.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

1. except that local companies MAKE them overseas, And

import many of the components and precursors.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

2. Exactly!

I read the fine print on my generic version of Claritin to find out that it was made in .... India!

And the FDA tells us that we can't buy Canadian drugs because they may not be "safe."

In the Sunbelt, there are regular migrations of seniors into Mexico to buy prescription drugs.

[Submariner]

3. That may be the case soon

Until recently when the tax laws changed against them, many of our drugs have been made in Puerto Rico. As I drive around the island on my work assignments, I see the big name pharma company factories all over the place, but they seem to be closing down one-by-one.

[Warpy]

4. They're reopening elsewhere,

just not in the US or its territories. Drug production has been outsourced and offshored along with other manufacturing. It was one more industry we couldn't afford to lose, and it's gone forever thanks to a corrupt FDA enabled by a corrupt Congress.

Actually, the elderly and uninsured in the US have been subsidizing the national health plans overseas for a very long time. We typically pay 300%-500% over what an HMO pays for the same drug and until very recently, no pharmacy would ever give us a break. Because they were making money hand over fist from Medicare covered and uninsured people, they could well afford to let health plans here and overseas set maximum prices while keeping their lavish advertising budgets and upper management pay packages intact.

[Devlzown]

5. I would be happy if the only medical reform

passed in this country was drug price control. My doctor visits aren't so pricey -- although hospital visits still are -- it's the cost of my meds that is so outrageous. There will be considerable resistance to putting ceilings on drug costs, though.