Pharmaceutical industry

Cynics will scoff at Donald Trump’s latest initiative: issuing an executive order forcing pharmaceutical companies to lower the prices of medical drugs used by US patients by between 30 and 80 percent. The President wants to impose what he calls a “most favored nation” rule, under which drugs companies would be allowed to charge US consumers no more than they charge in the lowest-priced country where they sell their product. That could have serious consequences for campaigns to fight disease globally, given that cheaper versions of drugs are often sold in developing countries which might not otherwise be able to afford vaccination programs and the like. Isn’t Trump supposed to be against price-fixing?

While it’s great news that Pfizer, BioNTech, AstraZeneca and other pharmaceutical companies are developing vaccines to prevent people from getting the coronavirus, we should remember that international criminal entities are taking advantage of the fear, uncertainty and desperation created by the coronavirus pandemic to expand their illicit footprint. Since early June, Customs and Border Protection has seized more than 107,000 FDA-prohibited COVID-19 test kits, 750,000 counterfeit face masks, thousands of EPA-prohibited anti-virus lanyards, 11,000 FDA-prohibited chloroquine tables and more than 67,000 ACCU-CHEK test strips. When demand outstrips supply, it creates an environment in which substandard and counterfeit medical supplies proliferate.