Drug Companies Are Addicted to High Prices

Re “Drug Firms Say, ‘No, Canada,’ ” May 23: I’ve been buying almost all of my prescription drugs from Canada for almost two years, and my average savings are almost 60% of what I’d have to pay locally at a chain drug store. Last month my cardiologist prescribed Zocor for me, and I priced a 90-day supply locally at $401. I checked with my Canadian pharmacy, and it provides my prescription for a 100-day supply for $165. It’s every bit as safe as what is sold here. That’s a larger savings than with my other prescriptions.

Let me tell you, I have far more faith in the Canadian version of the FDA than I do in our own. Canada is far stricter on regulating drugs than is the U.S. Another point is that those drug makers wouldn’t even be selling in Canada if they weren’t making a nice profit there, as well as in the many other nations that control the price of prescription drugs. That tells me that their prices in the U.S. are highway robbery and their arguments about needing the extra profits for research and development are just so much horse-pucky.

Arthur Carden

California City

Let me get this straight. It’s OK to outsource American jobs, but it’s not OK to import less-expensive drugs from Canada. U.S. corporations want to have their cake and eat it too. And when we ask them how we’re going to afford our heart medicine, they’ll say, “Let them eat cake.” Down with the “Busheoisie”!

John Wood

Pasadena

The pharmaceutical industry warns us not to trust the very drugs they themselves make and sell in Canada, and no wonder: Two weeks ago, “Children’s Analgesic May Be Tainted” (May 13) told us that one giant U.S. pill-pusher had, for more than a month, been peddling shiny adult-strength, red-and-white, gelatin-coated tablets in bottles that were supposed to contain purple, grape-flavored children’s pills. I’ll take my chances on Canada; it’s a good bet that most of our medicines are going to originate in Bangladesh soon anyway.

Jon K. Williams

Santa Barbara