Beware of Bogus Swine Flu Products

The FDA has recently released a Fraudulent Influenza Products List to alert consumers about web sites that are illegally marketing products related to the 2009 H1N1 flu (“swine flu”) virus. Keep in mind that the FDA specifically states that they have approved some of these products for other medical uses; however, none have been approved to diagnose, mitigate, prevent, treat, or cure the H1N1 flu virus. These unapproved products are as follows:

Air System Products

• AUV Eliminator
• AirFree
• AllerAir
• American Ultraviolet
• Breathe More Easy
• Cleanaer
• Eliminator
• FlexAir PAPR
• Sanuvox
• UV Aire
• Verilux

Body Wash Products

• Q-Based Solutions, Inc.

Device Products

• Swine Flu Advisor

Gel Products

• Q-Based Solutions, Inc.

Gloves Products

• Emergency Distaster Systems

Hand Sanitizer Products

• SkinWear
• Soapopular
• Viraban

Herbal Extract Products

• Amrita
• TCM Help Me

Inhaler Products

• Flu Away
• No Colds, No Flus

Kit Products

• 911 Water
• Boss Safety
• Duram
• Emergency Distaster Systems
• Express Medical Supplies
• FlexAir PAPR
• Life Secure
• Q-Based Solutions, Inc.
• Quake Kare
• SilverCure

Mask Products

• Noveko
• Safe Life
• SpectraShield
• Triosyn

Shampoo Products

• SilverCure

Spray Products

• Nozin
• Q-Based Solutions, Inc.
• Secrets of Eden
• Susan Ambrosino's Herb Club, Inc.

Supplement Products

• Acai Burn
• Ageless Herbs
• Allera
• Back to Health
• BioSET
• Buried Treasure
• CeraFlu
• Defend-Rx
• Extreme Immunity
• Fitura
• Flucinex
• GlycoMeds
• Guardian
• Health Food Emporium
• Healthy Choice Nutritionals
• Herbal Remedies
• Living Streams
• Macro Greens
• Master Supplements, Inc.
• Mbi Nutraceuticals
• Meridian Lifeforce, Inc
• Miracle Reds
• NZYMES
• Natren
• Nature's Health Supply
• Nature's Sunshine
• Perelandra
• Royal Camu
• Simple Clinic
• Super Spectrim
• Susan Ambrosino's Herb Club, Inc.
• The New Silver Solution
• Universal Health Services
• Vitacroft
• Wellness Resources

Tea Products

• TCM Discovery
• TCM Help Me

Test Products

• BD
• LightMix
• Luminex
• Prodesse

Does Your Pharmacist Have the Time to Help You?

Though it’s kind of an old post, a few months ago Dr. Grumpy wrote an interesting article about a recent trip to his pharmacy. When he arrived, the pharmacy was incredibly busy with long lines and even longer waiting times. According to Dr. Grumpy, one pharmacist and two pharmacy technicians had called in sick that day, leaving only one pharmacist to navigate a VERY understaffed store.

As Dr. Grumpy was waiting in line, he overheard the pharmacist being called to counsel a patient on a new medication. Instead of walking over to the elderly woman and discussing her new prescription, the pharmacist yelled from across the room that her new blood pressure drug could make her constipated or lightheaded. And that was it.

Make sure to read the comments below Dr. Grumpy’s post, where many other pharmacists reiterate just how understaffed most pharmacies are. You may not even realize this, but there’s a pretty good chance that your pharmacist can barely keep his or her head above water during work. While not every day is quite as hectic as Dr. Grumpy’s described, it’s often pretty close at many pharmacies. And as awful as it sounds, if your pharmacist finds him or herself in such a situation, he or she will usually have just one concern during these times: getting you out the door as fast as possible.

Just as I mentioned the other day, when your pharmacist is stressed out and overworked, your prescription is turned into an inconvenience. You’re suddenly just another obstacle keeping your pharmacist from going home at the end of the day, and both you and your needs take a backseat. Your pharmacist just wants to reduce his or her workload as fast as possible.

I know what this is like from personal experience. I used to work in an understaffed, chain pharmacy where I barely had the time to do anything but check the accuracy of prescriptions. And even though I have a passion for helping people save money on their medications, I didn’t have the time or the motivation to help more than a small handful of my patients.

So if this is the type of pharmacy you use, you can’t simply depend on someone else to look out for your best interest. Sure, everyone would like to think that their pharmacist would tell them about another available $20 drug if they brought in a $150 prescription. But I can assure you that this probably won’t happen. After all, if a pharmacist can’t even take the time to fulfill a legal requirement to counsel a patient on a new medication, do you really think he’ll be willing to take an extra 30 minutes (of spare time that he doesn’t have) to help you change to a more affordable prescription regimen, especially when it will probably decrease his employer’s profits?

Instead, you need to take matters into your own hands. You need to grab the proverbial bull by the horns and initiate your own steps to prescription drug savings. And at MrMedSaver.com, we specialize in helping our clients do just that.

When Will Generic Namenda be Available?

A U.S. District Court judge recently made a ruling that prevents several generic manufacturers from releasing a generic version of the Alzheimer’s drug Namenda. According to the ruling, generic Namenda won’t be available until its patent expires on April 11th, 2015. Until then, there are other, more affordable generic medications available to help treat Alzheimer’s disease. At MrMedSaver.com, this is exactly the type of information that we specialize in providing.

Walmart Will Now Mail Deeply-Discounted Generics

Yesterday, Walmart announced that they will now offer deeply-discounted generic drugs by mail. In the past, one of the catches to Walmart’s $4.00 and $10.00 generic program was the fact that you actually had to pick up these prescriptions in the store in order to receive these special prices. Of course, this made sense, since Walmart’s main motive to implement this program was to drive foot traffic through their stores.

So, why would Walmart not only give up this foot traffic but also lose additional money on each prescription by paying for mailing costs? The way I see it, two main factors are at play:

• Walmart is Targeting Consumers Without Insurance: As we’ve seen previously on this blog (like with prices on generic Casodex, generic Risperdal, generic Lamictal, generic CellCept, generic Prilosec, generic Topamax, and others), Walmart actually charges prices that are extraordinarily high for many medications that are not on their deeply-discounted list. I estimate that Walmart would lose $3.00-16.00 on every $10.00 prescription that they mail out. Of course, if you don’t have insurance, there’s also a high probability that you’ll fill other prescriptions at Walmart, and open yourself up to being overcharged. Losing $16.00 is nothing to Walmart if they can make $200.00 off another one of your prescriptions. Also note that Walmart still won’t offer a $4.00 price on a prescription that is mailed. Rather, it’s only the “90 day” $10.00 price. Thus, Walmart will only have to pay to mail each prescription four times per year, at least in theory.
• Walmart is Targeting Employers: Dr. Adam Fein over at DrugChannels.net has been watching Walmart’s strategy unfold over several months. It all started about a year ago when Walmart announced a deal with Caterpillar where the manufacturer negotiated prescription prices with the pharmacy directly, as opposed to going through a PBM. Now, this new mail order option will allow Walmart to be even more competitive when trying to secure such contracts. And while they may lose money when such prescriptions are mailed out, most people under such plans will probably continue to physically come and pick up their prescriptions . . . thus maintaining a steady stream of foot traffic.

Whatever the reason(s) behind Walmart’s latest move, I would now highly encourage anyone who uses Walmart’s pharmacy to take advantage of this new policy. Think about it. Having your prescriptions mailed will mean no more waiting in the store and no more buying extra items on impulse. Now that’s a great way to save both TIME and MONEY—by not stepping foot inside Walmart.

The Disappearance of Customer Service in Pharmacies

A few weeks ago, the air conditioner at our house quit working. The company we normally use in such situations was backlogged, so—at the suggestion of a friend—we called another company who said they could come out the following day.

That next day, I was able to come home early from work, arriving just in time to hear the technician tell us what was wrong with the air conditioner.

“I’ve got bad news,” he said as he walked in the house. “It’s your compressor, which is one of the most expensive parts to replace on an air conditioner. In fact, when it breaks a lot of people just choose to buy a new unit. Tell you what . . . I’ll go get you a price for a new compressor and a new unit. That way you can figure out what you want to do.”

As he left the house and walked out to his van, my wife and I sat on the couch, both cursing the air conditioner that seemed to cause us problems every summer. Suddenly, my wife stood up and stared out the window with a puzzled look on her face.

“Well . . . he’s leaving,” she said, watching him pull out of our driveway. “I thought he was coming right back.”

We both decided that we had simply misinterpreted him. While we thought he was going out to his van to retrieve some pricing information, he apparently had to go back to the office to get the data. We shrugged it off to simple miscommunication, and decided we’d just wait for him to give us a call.

So, we waited.

And we waited.

And then around 6:00, we realized no one was going to call us. I called the company to see if they had an emergency phone number. They didn’t.

The August heat began to really take its toll, and that weekend without air conditioning was very hot and very uncomfortable. When Monday finally came around, I called the company first thing in the morning, explaining my problem to the receptionist who answered the phone. She assured me that someone would call me back right away. They never did.

As luck would have it, my wife never called to cancel our appointment with the company that we usually dealt with. They arrived right on time on Tuesday, and fixed our air conditioner that very day. And it cost much less than the first technician had alluded to.

I’m sure I would have paid for a new air conditioning unit from this other company. All they had to do was put forth the effort to actually do their job. The funny thing is . . . probably what bothered me the most was the fact that I couldn’t believe that anyone would run a business this way. I couldn’t believe someone would make it so hard for me to give them money. But then I realized that this very thing happens every day in my own profession.

Over the years, customer service has all but vanished in most pharmacies across America. And this customer service has withered away so gradually that most people aren’t even aware that it’s missing. I’ve seen so many things that actually make me embarrassed to be a pharmacist, such as:

• People waiting more than two hours to have a single prescription filled.
• Pharmacists refusing to accept new prescriptions because they’re going to close in 45 minutes.
• Pharmacies who tell people they need to call their refills in 48 hours in advance.
• Pharmacists who are too lazy to counsel someone on a new medication.
• Pharmacists who won’t even take a minute of their time to help someone out.

Even though customers are the ones who are ultimately responsible for a pharmacist’s paycheck, many pharmacists see every customer as just another inconvenience . . . another obstacle to going home at the end of the day. And because this unhelpful attitude is so prevalent at pharmacies across the nation, most people assume that being treated like shit is just a normal part of having a prescription filled. In fact, this has become so normal, that most people don’t even know they’re being treated like shit.

Although this blog is all about saving money on prescription drugs, sometimes there are actually other things that are more important than finding the cheapest prescription. After all, sometimes you do get what you pay for.

Are Canadian Internet Pharmacies Safe?

LegitScript.com recently published an excellent article on the safety of Canadian internet pharmacies. As this article clearly states from the beginning, true Canadian pharmacies can usually be considered safe. However, the problem arises when internet pharmacies claim to be Canadian but actually ship drugs to their customers from third-world countries.

It can be incredibly difficult to determine the true origin of many internet pharmacies. In fact, even I have a hard time determining the legitimacy of many of these online pharmacies. However, as LegitScript’s article states, it becomes even more complicated when pharmacies that have authentic Canadian licenses aren’t actually shipping medications to their customers. Instead, when prescriptions are ordered from these pharmacies, the medications are shipped directly to the consumers from other countries, such as India or Turkey.

Many of these “Canadian” internet pharmacies have passed background checks from verification websites such as PharmacyChecker.com, based on the fact that these pharmacies do have real Canadian pharmacy licenses. However, the fact that these “Canadian” pharmacies aren’t actually shipping any drugs out of Canada validates the stance I’ve had for years:

There are safer ways to save even more money on your prescription drugs than by using Canadian pharmacies.

Of course, we’ve all heard the claims before . . .

“Prescription drugs are cheaper in Canada.”
“To save real money, buy your prescriptions from Canadian pharmacies.”
“Americans are getting ripped off, paying way more than Canadian citizens for the same prescription drugs.”

However, most people don’t realize that pharmacies in the U.S. actually have lower prices for generic drugs than pharmacies in Canada. Therefore, if you’re looking to save money on your prescriptions, you need to make sure you’re addressing the real source of high prices. Often, pharmacy selection (between the U.S. and Canada) isn’t the problem . . . instead, the problem is drug selection.

In the hypothetical example below, let’s say that your doctor has prescribed Drug A for you. In the U.S., there’s no generic version available for this drug, and the brand-name version costs $140. By utilizing an online Canadian pharmacy, a generic version of this medication can be purchased for $85, or a savings of about 40%.

(Click to Enlarge)

But what if a similar drug were already available generically in the U.S.? Because American generic drugs are cheaper than in Canada, this medication would actually be the most cost-effective option, at $18 (or a savings of about 87%). And such a prescription could be purchased safely from your neighborhood pharmacy. As you can see by this hypothetical example, the safest and smartest solution to high prescription drug prices isn’t to use a Canadian pharmacy. Instead, the answer is often selecting medications which are already affordable in the U.S.

At MrMedSaver.com, we specialize in providing our clients with detailed Rx Savings Reports that illustrate more affordable options for their prescription drug therapy. If you’re considering utilizing a Canadian internet pharmacy to lower your prescription costs, visit our website to discover the MrMedSaver.com difference. Not only will you most likely save more money than you would by using a Canadian pharmacy, but you’ll also be able to continue using a reputable American pharmacy.

Only a Lawyer Would Think of Doing This

Lawyer's husband is dying of cancer. Lawyer does some research, and asks her husband's doctors to try a different drug - which doesn't work. But . . . the drug does work for other patients with the same type of cancer. Drug company makes $2.2 billion per year. Lawyer sues drug company for $300 million, claiming it was her idea to use this drug for this type of cancer.

Patent Baristas has the full story.

Generic Casodex: Pharmacies Take the Opportunity to Rip Off Cancer Patients

A new generic version of the prostate cancer drug Casodex was recently released a few weeks ago. As opposed to the brand-name version, which costs more than $600 per month, generic bicalutamide 50mg tablets are VERY affordable. But as we’ve seen on this blog before, when an expensive brand-name drug becomes available as a cheap generic, many pharmacies don’t pass these savings on to their customers.

Here’s a comparison of the price for the same prescription filled at different pharmacies across the country:

Price for Generic Casodex 50mg #30 Tablets
Albertsons: $458.99
Costco: $44.75
CVS: $483.99
Duane Reade: $572.00
Giant Eagle: $622.00
Hy-Vee: $587.99
Local Independent Pharmacy #1: $286.32
Local Independent Pharmacy #2: $78.42
Kmart: $53.63
Kroger: $545.69
Meijer: $245.29
Publix: $456.95
Rite Aid: $504.99
Safeway: $484.99
Sams: $497.50
ShopRite: $299.39
Target: $497.49
Walgreens: $145.29
Walmart: $497.50

Wegmans: $549.99
Winn-Dixie: $348.95

(Click to Enlarge)

As you can see, I found an absolutely huge variation in the price of this medication. On the low end were Costco and Kmart, with respective prices of $44.75 and $53.63. On the high end was Giant Eagle, who actually charged more for generic Casodex ($622.00) than most of these other pharmacies charged for the brand-name version of this medication. At first, I thought the Giant Eagle pharmacist had really given me the price for brand-name Casodex, but then she told me that the brand-name version was about $40 higher! Of the 21 pharmacies that I called, only three—about 14%—had reasonable prices.

A Few Other Thoughts . . .

• Walgreens. While Walgreens usually has some of the highest prescription prices around, they actually had the fourth lowest price for generic Casodex. This is just further proof that you can’t simply assume the price of prescription drugs at any pharmacy. Instead, it’s important to call these stores to determine their prices.
• Sams and Walmart. About a month ago, I wrote a similar article about the variation in price for generic Risperdal among pharmacies. I had noted that Walmart charged about three times as much as Sams for this drug—even though this medication obviously had the exact same cost for both pharmacies. When it comes to generic Casodex, though, there was no such pricing disparity between the two pharmacies. Indeed, both pharmacies charged exactly the same high price of $497.50 (more than 11 times the price that Costco charged).
• “There is no generic version of Casodex.” Of the 21 pharmacies I called, five of them at first tried to tell me that a generic version of Casodex doesn’t exist. Interestingly enough, both Costco (which had the lowest price) and Giant Eagle (which had the highest price) were among these five pharmacies. This is absolutely ridiculous . . . especially considering the fact that generic Casodex has been available for more than a month. In fact, I actually waited so long to write this article because I know how clueless many pharmacists are about the availability of new generics. Even after all this time, though, almost a quarter of the pharmacists I talked to initially argued with me that generic Casodex doesn’t exist. In all of these cases, I mentioned that other pharmacies had told me that there was a generic version, and I was able to receive a price for this drug. However, if you brought in a prescription for this medication to one of these pharmacies, it’s fairly likely that you would end up paying for the brand-name drug.

Say Goodbye to Generic Ortho Tri-Cyclen Lo

It looks like generic Ortho Tri-Cyclen Lo is definitely going away for awhile. Teva, the manufacturer of generic Tri-Lo-Sprintec, recently announced that they’ve entered into an agreement to settle the patent infringement lawsuit that Ortho-McNeil-Janssen Pharmaceuticals brought forth a few weeks ago. Under this agreement, a generic version of this oral contraceptive won’t be available again until December 31, 2015! Right now, most pharmacies still have this generic on their shelves. So, if you take this medication, stocking up on your prescription now could save you a few bucks.

Will Herbal Supplements Finally be Regulated?

Over the Counter Today recently had an interesting article about Iowa Senator Tom Harkin’s pledge to fight any changes to the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act (or DSHEA).

I’ve written about dietary supplements, such as herbal and homeopathic products, before. The vast majority of the time, alternative medicine products like these are a complete waste of money. And sometimes, these products can even be dangerous to your health . . . such as with the latest warnings on Zicam.

The main problem with herbal products is a complete lack of regulation. Unlike real drugs, herbal products have little or no regulation in the following areas:

• Effectiveness: Before traditional drugs are allowed on the market, their manufacturers must prove to the FDA that these products actually work. For proof of effectiveness, the FDA requires highly scientific, placebo-controlled studies that are then thoroughly reviewed. In contrast, herbal products do not have to be proven effective at all before they’re allowed on the market.


• Safety: The FDA also requires traditional drugs to be proven reasonably safe before they enter the market. With herbal products, though, there are absolutely no requirements whatsoever. In fact, the FDA is only allowed to intervene AFTER significant health problems have arose from dietary supplements.


• Manufacturing: The manufacturing of traditional medications is also highly regulated. However, no government bodies regulate the manufacturing of herbal drugs. These products could easily contain nothing but inactive fillers like lactose. On the other hand, these products could also contain 10-20 times as much active ingredient as advertised.

Obviously, these products need further regulation to protect both the health and the wallets of the general public. In fact, according to Over the Counter Today, House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman recently published a book in which he states that the DSHEA demonstrates “that any market lacking regulation or the need to ensure safety quickly sinks to the lowest common denominator."

As a pharmacist, I can tell you that Waxman’s description of this industry is spot-on. So, why would Iowa Senator Tom Harkin be so adamant about protecting this herbal corruption? Well I’m sure it doesn’t have anything to do Herbalife International, the top contributor to his campaign, who has given him almost $135,000 over his career.