Big Pharma Firms Seeking .pharmacy Domain To Crowd Out Legitimate Foreign Pharmacies
from the killing-the-grey-market dept
For years, we've noted that the big drug companies like to conflate legitimate foreign pharmacies (often based in Canada) that sell back into the US (the so-called "reimportation" or "parallel import" market) at cheaper prices with out and out bogus or counterfeit online pharmacies. The drug companies like nothing better than when people lump the two very different beasts together and label them all as "counterfeit." Of course, for many Americans, relying on cheaper legit drugs from Canada is the only way they can survive, and there have been efforts made at times by US politicians -- including President Obama -- to support more parallel importation to ease the high cost of drugs in the US.However, there's an interesting tidbit coming out in the ongoing battles over new top level domains. It appears that the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy is seeking a .pharmacy domain, which (obviously) they would then only bestow upon pharmacies that they like. That could be a big issue, because it's likely they wouldn't allow that for certain Canadian pharmacies and other foreign legitimate pharmacies that may offer cheaper drugs. Both Demand Progress and Public Citizen recently filed comments with ICANN about why NABP should not be allowed to control .pharmacy.
From Public Citizen's filing:
Granting the .pharmacy domain to NABP would confer legitimacy on pharmacies sanctioned by NABP, to the detriment of those that are not.And, from Demand Progress's filing:
NABP has proposed an unfair standard that would bar online pharmacies that serve US consumers but are located outside of the United States from using the domain (see NABP’s application at Section 18(a) IV*). This would exclude many licensed pharmacies which offer American consumers low-cost medicines of quality.
Whether a pharmacy is located in the United States does not determine whether a pharmacy is licensed and provides medicines of quality.
Consumer access to medicines depends in significant part on price and competition. It would be inappropriate to allow NABP to control such an important gTLD while it maintains exclusionary plans for the domain, which work against the consumer interest in a robust market of quality affordable pharmaceuticals.
The pharmaceutical industry has prioritized trying to shut down legitimate pharmacies selling safe Canadian drugs to U.S. consumers (as currently allowed by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration). But their tactics to achieve these anti-consumer goals involve censorship regimes allowing government seizure of domains, blacklists of sites, or suspended hosting services for legitimate competitors.The Demand Progress comment also points out how the big pharmaceutical companies supported SOPA and PIPA, since they knew that it, too, would be useful to use as a sledgehammer against foreign online pharmacies that sold legitimate drugs back into the US.
NABP supporters have justified their actions by preying on consumer fear of counterfeiters, when their real goals include shutting down sites providing cheaper legitimate drugs. Pfizer joined the assault on the Net in 2011, testifying to Congress that: "The major threat to patients in the U.S., however, is the Internet..." ...
NABP's supporters define "fake pharmacies" as those not registered with VIPPS, rather than only those selling actual counterfeit goods.
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Filed Under: .pharmacy, big pharma, canada, drugs, grey market, parallel imports, reimportation, tlds, top level domains
Companies: icann, nabp
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Get AARP involved?
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.drugs
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AARP > NABP
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Re: AARP > NABP
AARP > NABP
I think we may get a chance to have our valiant government representatives tear their hair out over this one. To whom do they pledge allegiance, The majority of the population or an industry bloated with cash? ...Oh, never mind, their hearts belong to the dark lord."
TYPICAL TECHDIRT! Vulgar, stupid, and LIES that totally misrepresent the opposition here.
You'll see from time stamps that I posted at nearly same time, but after, so there's absolutely no justification for this nasty little bit of NON-comment.
And because such filth is common here I have a tagline for it:
Take a loopy tour of Techdirt.com! You always end up same place!
http://techdirt.com/
This is Techdirt! If you value civility leave at once!
06:05:37[h- 26-1]
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Re: Re: AARP > NABP
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Pharmacies outside US have no inherent right to US trade!
Yeah, I LIKE the Populist aspects of lowering costs that Mike throws into this, and of course, in theory, there are consumer benefits, but he's yet again ignoring major questions to focus on very narrow points. -- The HUGE question hanging over all this is why prices ARE higher in the US! Once upon a time, in a relatively free and prosperous country now far, far away, industrial production lowered prices to peanuts, even though tax rates on both corporations and the 1% were HIGH, up to 90%! But that's no longer true now that corporations outright take over gov't, and The Rich escape taxes with all sorts of dodges. I say there's clear correlation. -- And back in those days, almost no one NEEDED expensive drugs, which is a whole 'nother can of worms too messy to go into here.
The only way to get these and other pricing problems under control is to tax The Rich enough that they just don't bother trying to wring out yet more luxuries for themselves while impoverishing everyone else. -- High prices are a tax on YOU! -- Let's go back to the good old days when corporations served public interests, OR ELSE the executives got tossed into jail.
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Re: Pharmacies outside US have no inherent right to US trade!
Whether or not this means the U.S. is paying extra to front the development costs for other countries is debated, but the reason the drugs cost more in the U.S. is pretty plain.
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Re: Re: Pharmacies outside US have no inherent right to US trade!
They do however love ever-greening......
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Re: Pharmacies outside US have no inherent right to US trade!
I think you blew a gasket.
In what planet did corporations ever serve public interests (intentionally, at least)?
The goal of a corporation is to make money for its stakeholders. Serving public interests is merely a by-product of their activity.
Or do you actually think that the telephone company would ever build infrastructure out of the kindness of their hearts?
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Re: Re: Pharmacies outside US have no inherent right to US trade!
*SUPPOSEDLY* (yes, i know) corporations were ONLY *GRANTED* a charter IF their proposed project (they were originally mostly 'project based', not in perpetuity) WAS TO BENEFIT THE PUBLIC...
*supposedly*, you were NOT to be granted a charter for the mere purpose of profit, there HAD TO be public benefit in order for 'us' to grant a corporation their charter...
of course, that has all been corrupted to the point where REAL PEOPLE have LESS RIGHTS than legal fictions we now call people...
welcome to bizarro world...
art guerrilla
aka ann archy
eof
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Re: Re: Pharmacies outside US have no inherent right to US trade!
There is no legal reason why we cannot return to that practice. And we should.
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Re: Pharmacies outside US have no inherent right to US trade!
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Re: Pharmacies outside US have no inherent right to US trade!
Take your post, and replace references to pharmacy with RIAA or MPAA and let's see how it sounds.
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And why is it economically to re-import something the US exported?
Under what kind of an economic system is it ever cheaper to buy a product from Person B who lives a few hundred miles away, that they bought from Person A (as well as paying for shipping both ways), rather then just buying that product directly from Person A in the first place who lives right next to you?
The answer is only in a dysfunctional system that doesn't work.
Canada's government is able to negotiate much cheaper prescription drug prices because their government covers everyone in Canada, which gives them tons of bargaining power. The US however has several hundreds rather small (compared to Canada) insurance companies, all divided into separate markets in each state. All of which are all too small and weak to negotiate a deal as good as Canada's government does.
In reality the US ought to be able to get at least as a good a deal as Canada, if not better, at prescription drugs, seeing as Canada's entire population is about the size of California, or 1/10th of the US.
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Re: And why is it economically to re-import something the US exported?
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about time
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unless they are going to outlaw .com/.org/.whatever/ etc., who really cares?
I guess I'm just not seeing how these new top level domains will be valuable in any way. If I'm looking for netflix, I'll type netflix into my search bar, not netflix.movie.
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Why does this matter?
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