Dr. Ross in the Wall Street Journal
ACSH’s Dr. Gilbert Ross has an op-ed in today’s Wall Street Journal that warns of the dangers that drug (re)importation poses both to the American people and pharmaceutical innovation: “possibly dangerous foreign drugs may soon be on their way to our drugstores and hospitals, and along with them will come dangerous price controls that will demolish drug innovation and condemn our children and grandchildren to cope with obsolete drugs from the dawn of the twenty-first century.”
“This is a very important piece,” says ACSH’s Dr. Elizabeth Whelan. “Very few people understand the full scope of the dangers of drug re-importation. Most articles on the subject focus on the risk of counterfeit or substandard drugs -- and that is important. But most also miss the main point: what comes with drug importation is importation of price controls. The only reason drugs are cheaper in Canada is that international law requires U.S. drug companies to sell their drugs at dramatically reduced prices in order to comply with other countries’ price control laws. So if these drugs are sold back to the U.S., we get the price controls imported with the drugs.”
You Didn’t Even Know You Were an Industry
ACSH’s Jeff Stier says, “The Washington Post’s Dan Eggen tried to suggest that a variety of groups with positions on healthcare reform are suspect because of their funding and that ACSH is ‘industry friendly’.”
“We are flattered that the Washington Post recognizes us as a major player in healthcare discussions, and we are. We talk about healthcare issues like pharmaceutical topics all the time -- e.g., Dr. Ross’s op-ed today. However, that they characterized us simply as ‘industry friendly’ is gratuitous, and the fact that Mr. Eggen failed to call us is shameful reporting.”
Dr. Ross agrees: “We often come out on the side of industry because, by and large, products of American industry are safe and effective but are attacked based on unscientific ideas. In reality, we are actually friendly to the American consumer, since we are defending science and their right to good-quality products by taking a stand against unfounded attacks on industry.”
Stier adds, “It’s too reductive to say that we are pro-industry. We do not support the organic food or homeopathic medicine industries, nor do we support those that produce so-called ‘green’ cleaning products or ‘miracle’ weight-loss plans. We support good industry and oppose bad industry based on science and consumer interest. There’s nothing wrong with being ‘industry-friendly,’ but those words were designed to undercut the credibility of you, our individual supporters, as well as that of our esteemed scientific advisors by saying ours is an industry point of view and therefore not an independent policy viewpoint.”
Seat at the Table
A seat at the table goes out to Liz Szabo for her article in USA Today in which she points out that parents who neglect to vaccinate their children weaken the overall population’s “community immunity,” increasing the chances that vaccinated and unvaccinated children alike will be vulnerable to devastating diseases.
“Make sure your children get their recommended vaccines,” says Dr. Ross. “These childhood diseases can still kill and cripple people, and the vaccines are safe no matter what claptrap you hear from anti-vaccine activists.”
For more information, see ACSH’s publication on the science and controversy of vaccines.
Good News for Most of Ninety-Six Mice
A study published in the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease by the Florida Alzheimer's Disease Research Center claims that radiation from cell phones may protect against Alzheimer’s.
“It really challenges the whole credibility of Alzheimer’s research to have things like this reported,” says Dr. Whelan. “There is one basic question that has to be asked here: Why did this peer review journal publish this?”
“The sad fact is that there’s not much legitimate Alzheimer’s research being accomplished, so they turn to this, despite the fact that it is absurd from the get-go,” says Dr. Ross. “The study used ninety-six mice -- which would be a small sample even for humans -- ‘most of which’ were genetically altered to develop beta-amyloid plaques in their brains. Beta-amyloid is correlated to Alzheimer’s, but it’s not the same thing. I’d hate to trash the whole research center based on this, but it’s a terrible study.”
Stier notes, “Defending cell phones from claims that they cause brain tumors was another example where ACSH was accused of being pro-industry. Well, here we’re equally skeptical about claims that they prevent Alzheimer’s, so does that make us anti-industry?”
Stier Looks on the Bright Side
For all of you who suspected from the beginning, it’s true: Environmental Health News reports, “Commonly-used flame retardants can accumulate in frogs where they can be passed from a mother to her eggs and on into the next generation.”
“I guess that means there will be fewer frog fires,” says Stier.
Curtis Porter is a research intern at the American Council on Science and Health (ACSH.org).