Canada exporter fills prescriptions for U.S. customers through Bahamas

It took almost two months for a retired doctor in Rocky River, Ohio, to get the medicine he had ordered from Canada, and when he opened the package this week, he found out why.

His order took a detour to the Caribbean.

The invoice for his three-month supply of Plavix, a blood thinner, has a Freeport, Bahamas, address and is dated July 22.

The Ontario-based pharmacy the doctor used opened a facility in the free-trade zone in Freeport after Pfizer and other leading U.S. drug makers cut supplies to Canadian pharmacies that sell to U.S. customers. It is the latest development in the Canadian drug wars as pharmacists seek other ways to sell cheaper drugs to their customers in the United States.

The U.S. prescriptions received in Ontario are filled in Freeport at a licensed Bahamian pharmacy co-owned by Harvey Organ, who also runs Kohler's Drug Store in Hamilton, Ontario. Kohler's is also known by its Internet address, www.CanadaRx.net.

The delay occurred when U.S. Customs officials in Miami detected 493 packages of prescription drugs from the Bahamas.

Customs had never seen such a large shipment of drugs from the Bahamas and alerted the Food and Drug Administration, said William Hubbard, the FDA's associate director of policy. FDA inspectors held up the shipment in August and are still examining the drugs to see if they are safe.

Organ said none of the drugs is made in the Bahamas. They are imported there mostly from Canada, though some brand-name drugs come from New Zealand, England, Switzerland and Germany.

That's what worries the FDA.

"The more you spread out across the world, the more opportunities there are for the drug to be made in some substandard way or be counterfeit," Hubbard said. "You raise the risk whenever you reach out to other countries."

Organ said safety is not the issue. "The issue is profits, and the prices are higher in the United States," he said.

Senior citizens who buy drugs from Canada can save up to 90 percent on some medicines. Although the FDA maintains that importing foreign drugs is illegal, agency officials have said they are not focusing their limited enforcement resources on drugs imported for personal use.

The doctor's order was among some 3,000 packages stuck in the Bahamas after the pharmacy stopped mailing prescriptions after the FDA seizure. Among the delayed packages are prescription drugs ordered by members of the Minnesota Senior Federation.

The group's Canadian Prescription Drug Importation Program entitles members to specially negotiated prices from CanadaRx. The program serves about 6,000 federation members.

CanadaRx has resumed its shipments from the Bahamas by avoiding Miami, Organ said, but would not disclose how.

When the Rocky River doctor, who did not want his name published, opened his long-awaited package, he was relieved.

"I'm confident it's the real thing. The pills look exactly like the ones I get in the U.S."

With one big difference: The Canadian pills cost less than half as much.

A check of the best price available with one of the Medicare drug-discount cards finds it is almost 60 percent more than what he pays CanadaRx. He hasn't signed up for one.

"They're a joke," he said.