Plan B Forum

Jim's post here, made me think;

Lord Jim wrote:A polite spammer:

P.S. Excuse me for choosing "General stuff Tabloids" to leave a offer for men about plavix mechanism of action
http://www.theplanbforum.com - mighty site! Thanx!

Sorry, you're not excused.

So for information, I looked it up;

Clopidogrel is an oral, thienopyridine class antiplatelet agent used to inhibit blood clots in coronary artery disease, peripheral vascular disease, and cerebrovascular disease. It is marketed by Bristol-Myers Squibb and Sanofi-Aventis under the trade name Plavix. The drug works by irreversibly inhibiting a receptor called P2Y12, an adenosine diphosphate ADP chemoreceptor. Adverse effects include hemorrhage, severe neutropenia, and thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura (TTP)

Can someone tell me if I've got this right please?

I'm diagnosed with coronary artery disease, peripheral vascular disease, or cerebrovascular disease. (Obviously, for this example to work, I'm a USAian.)

Doctor says to me, "You need to go on Plavix young man."

I find the cost of my scripts too heavy to bear.

Suddenly I get this wonderful bit of spam telling me I can buy Plavix from, I don't know, say Buttfukistan, at one tenth the price of my US script.

So I send them my credit card details, and they send me some pills.

And everyone is happy and content apart from my pharmacist.

Have I got this right?

Do people in the USA do this?

I'm not talking about the silliness of sending spammers my credit card details, I'm talking about buying meds in from overseas.

People definitely do it; for a while there was a thriving internet pharmacy industry in Canada that was primarily targetted to U.S. customers, but it was pretty much shut down by rulings that said that the doctors being used by the pharmacies to write the scrips could not be performing adequate examinations before prescribing. But of course those rules don't exist in many other countries, so internet pharmacies continue to do brisk business. The problem is that unless the source is known to be reputable, the consumer doesn't really have any idea what they are getting for their money. Drugs that are marketed as brand name could be counterfeit and generic versions may or may not contain the appropriate (or any) amount of active ingredient.

Instead of "Buttfukistan", perhaps we could speak of some vaguely more civilized place like Canada.

There are folks who were getting boatloads of prescriptions from Canada because those nice ice dwellers sold them more cheaply, actually a lot more cheaply. Not sure if that is still the case because I believe big pharma cried foul over it not sure of the outcome. Of course we are warned not too, because although Canada is considered first world, they cannot be trusted for the purity of their drugs. Eh? (Edited to add see Scooter above.)

Additionally lots of folks go abroad for dental work and surgeries: Thailand for plastic surgery and sex changes as an example. Mexican dentists were a good tourist destination. Not sure now since the banditos have taken over.

Interesting situation.

Here's another hypothetical, If I lived in Northern USA, could I take my American doctor written script over the border to Canada, cash it at a discount (relative to the USA price,) and bring back my discounted meds through customs into the USA?

I don't know why the hypothetical Canadian pharmacy would fill a prescription from a physician who most likely is not licensed in Canada.

And here I thought this would be a thread on the hidden health benefits of the canned meat product.

@meric@nwom@n wrote:I don't know why the hypothetical Canadian pharmacy would fill a prescription from a physician who most likely is not licensed in Canada.

I was just wondering if that were another way that Americans (geographically located in the right area) could get cheaper scripts filled.

@meric@nwom@n wrote:I don't know why the hypothetical Canadian pharmacy would fill a prescription from a physician who most likely is not licensed in Canada.

They will so long as they don't have any suspicions about the prescriber or the legitimacy of the prescription e.g. don't present a scrip for a three month supply of oxycontin from a doctor who can't be reached to verify it. Remember the busloads of seniors from border states coming up to fill scrips?

Remember the busloads of seniors from border states coming up to fill scrips?

Now that you mention it I do remember that.

Crackpot wrote:And here I thought this would be a thread on the hidden health benefits of the canned meat product.

What health benefits? Most Samoans/Hawaiians I know who dine on that regularly, are huge.