Mexico: Higher Drug VAT Plan Slammed

Uprofram, the Mexican union of pharmacy owners, has attacked plans by the Ministry of Commerce to raise value-added tax, now at 15% for most products, on pharmaceuticals.

Uprofram president Julian Vazquez Morales said that with prices now rising virtually indiscriminately, with no controls by the Department of Commerce, drugs are "already inaccessible" for most Mexicans. He added, the extra tax would contravene Article 4 of the Constitution and the general health law.

He said the rising prices were due to the "monopolistic nature" of drug distributors, some of which had now set up their own pharmacies offering discounts, but that these were false savings, since the original prices had been inflated.