Customs Apology on Drug Seizures

A customs administrator apologized Monday for not warning consumers that the agency was cracking down on the shipping of prescription drugs from foreign discount pharmacies.

“I’m sorry that we didn’t do a better job maybe announcing that we were implementing this,” said Vera Adams, executive director of trade enforcement for U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

But, she added, “I will never apologize for trying to protect the American public.”

The crackdown, which began Nov. 17, reverses a long-standing government policy allowing a practice that is illegal: importing small supplies of nonnarcotic prescription drugs for personal use.

Some consumers who had come to rely on affordable prescriptions from Canadian pharmacies said they wished customs had left well enough alone.

Drawing an estimated 2 million customers seeking relief from soaring U.S. pharmaceutical prices, the mail-order drug business, based largely in Canada, has grown into $1-billion market.

Since the crackdown began, the agency has notified 12,735 consumers that their packages were stopped -- medications in most cases for seniors with heart and other chronic conditions.

Adams said that number reflected a small portion of packages seized. She said the agency had not kept track of all that were affected by the crackdown.

Canadian pharmacies have said that as many as 5% of all shipments are being stopped, an increase from less than 1% in the past.

Many American customers have complained that the effort abruptly interrupted their supply of affordable medications, forcing them to scramble for physician samples and other alternatives -- or to go without.

Lawmakers from both sides of the aisle criticized the agency for stepping up the seizures of medications without a public announcement in advance, and some questioned whether the effort was aimed at forcing seniors into Medicare’s new drug program.

Adams reiterated the agency’s position that the effort had nothing to do with the Medicare program.

Instead, she said, the crackdown was designed to stanch the flow of unregulated drugs to consumers, which the agency views as potentially ineffective and unsafe.

In hindsight, she said, she wished the agency had alerted the public ahead of time.

“We did not anticipate the backlash,” Adams said.

She said, however, that the criticism would not affect the agency’s resolve to enforce as vigorously as possible a law banning the importing of pharmaceuticals by individuals. She said the enforcement decision was based on concern expressed by the Government Accountability Office and members of Congress that some mail-order drugs pose a hazard.