Seniors take drugs battle to the street

  By LEONARD ZEHR

The Globe and Mail, February 21, 2003

Hundreds of mostly elderly Americans took to the streets yesterday, braving snow clogged Philadelphia, New York City and Schenectady, N.Y., to protest GlaxoSmithKline PLC's ban on supplying products to Internet pharmacies in Canada that deal with American customers.

"Tums Down," said one banner outside Glaxo's Philadelphia headquarters, referring to the company's popular antacid and the name of a consumer boycott launched by a multistate coalition of senior groups against the company's over-the-counter products.

Sixty-nine-year-old Richard Mahan, who braved the aftermath of the worst snowfall in a decade in Philadelphia to join some 40 other demonstrators in front of Glaxo's U.S. head office, said the drug company has chosen the wrong group to rile up.

"Seniors have nothing but time to keep on it," he said.

Coalition groups also conducted press conferences in San Francisco and Minneapolis against the potential loss of affordable pharmaceuticals from Canada, where prices are at least 50-per-cent lower than in the United States because of provincial price controls and a favourable exchange rate.

"Why should we pay twice what people in other countries pay for prescription drugs?" Barbara Kaufman, president of the Minnesota Senior Federation, told a conference call.

Urging a nationwide boycott of Glaxo products such as Tums, Contac, Geritol and Polident, Ms. Kaufman accused the drug giant of attempting to take away the right of Americans to choose where they purchase drugs "under the guise of safety."

Glaxo contends that it can't guarantee the safety of products sold by Canada's mail-order pharmacies in the U.S.

"That's just nonsense," Ms. Kaufman said. "Regardless of what Glaxo says we all know the real reason. We are affecting their bloated profit margins."

There were indications this week that other drug companies were joining Glaxo in attempting to curb mail-order sales.

Bayer Canada Inc., for example, is raising the price of blood glucose meters used by diabetics but also offering an instant rebate to Canadian customers after it noticed the devices were being sold by Internet drugstores to customers south of the border.

In the U.S., the boycott against Glaxo is also being supported by seniors groups in New York, Pennsylvania, Maine, Massachusetts, Indiana, Vermont, New Hampshire, Wisconsin, Washington, Texas and California.

The Vermont state senate has called on Glaxo to resume sales to Canadian pharmacies that sell to U.S. citizens.

Two bills have been introduced in Congress that would impose fines on Glaxo and would deny tax breaks to pharmaceutical companies that restrict shipments of drugs to Canadian mail-order companies.

The boycott leaders also said they have asked attorneys-general in several states to take legal action against Glaxo.

In a statement, Minnesota Congressman Gil Gutknecht said Glaxo's "brazen attempt to prevent Americans from obtaining lower cost medications from Canada is a textbook example of brazen abuse of monopolistic power.

Mississauga-based GlaxoSmithKline Inc., which sells such popular medicines as the antidepressant Paxil and Advair for asthma, began its assault on 58 Canadian mail-order pharmacies on Jan. 21.

John Lubelski, president of on-line pharmacy CanadaRx.net, said his company is still shipping Glaxo products but supplies are getting thin. "It's probably a question of weeks, not months, before we start running out." CanadaRx has filed a formal complaint with the Competition Bureau in Ottawa, seeking an immediate cease and desist order against Glaxo and an investigation into the drug company's "restraint of our business practices," he added.