Prescription Drug Smuggling

Your May 26 editorial, “Out-of-Control Pharmaceuticals,” briefly mentions perhaps the most disconcerting aspect of prescription drug smuggling--the role of American drug manufacturers. It should be no surprise to anyone that American companies sell in foreign countries unapproved drugs that can’t be sold in the U.S. In this way they differ little from manufacturers that sell guns and cigarettes (and maybe flammable pajamas) abroad.

Greed and shortsightedness leave Americans pretty much helpless in dealing with the tragic fallout of such practices. The fact that this particular travesty comes back over the border in the form of either illicit and dangerous black market drugs or a portion of our population whose health will always be in question should give us all pause.

ALLAN RABINOWITZ

Los Angeles

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“Dangerous Medicine” (series, May 23-25), on banned drugs being brought into the U.S., tells only half the story. As a result of our stringent federal regulations, all pharmaceuticals distributed entirely within the U.S. are manufactured to the highest possible standards. The consumer is guaranteed that such drugs are safe and efficacious, that a 50-mg. tablet contains exactly 50 mg. and not 40 or 100. But when a lot doesn’t quite measure up, when the regulations say it must be discarded, it isn’t buried in the manufacturer’s backyard. Instead, it is sold at a reduced price in countries whose standards aren’t quite so stringent as ours.

Disease bacteria don’t read labels. When a consumer rushes down to Tijuana (or the nearest flea market) in search of a bargain antibiotic, the pills he or she buys may be completely ineffective. A bargain painkiller may contain a lethal overdose.

PHILLIP GOOD

Huntington Beach