Low public interest hits US states' Rx drug sites

Despite the passage of a provision in the recent renewal of the Prescription Drug User Fee Act by the US Senate to legalize drug imports from Canada, evidence is mounting of reduced demand for the trade. The problem is not restricted to import schemes: the Arkansas Department of Health and Human Services announced in mid-May the closure of its low-income cheap drug scheme, Arkansas Rx, citing "lack of interest" as the cause.

Kimberley Strassel, a columnist for the Wall Street Journal, conducted a round-up of failed drug import schemes, starting with the contrast between the public pronouncements of Senator Olympia Snowe (Republican, Maine) and the reality of a drug-import program in Portland, Maine. The city gained notoriety, according to Ms Strassel, for defying US federal law and setting up a Canada import program that was intended to cut the medication bills of thousands of municipal employees and their dependents. "Three years in, it has attracted all of 350 participants," was the assessment of the WSJ columnist.

Also in Maine, Governor John Baldacci (Democrat) authorized the construction, of a distribution center to supply Canadian drugs to 325,000 uninsured and underinsured state residents, by the Penobscot Indian Nation. The tribe "unceremoniously closed the program" in February this year, having served a mere 3,000 Medicaid beneficiaries.