July 13, 2011Dear Sir,You would do the reading public a great service by pointing out (consistently in the body of each article on the subject) that inexpensive generic medications have long been available on the Island and already represent a great saving over brand name drugs. To date, these medications have been manufactured in jurisdictions with strong and effective regulatory environments and can reliably be considered of good quality and efficacy. The issue to hand is that it is proposed to import drugs from jurisdictions renowned for the production of fraudulent generic drugs and the production of generic drugs of such poor quality as to be partially or wholly ineffective or indeed, even dangerous. Bribery and corruption are rife in these countries such that regulatory oversight is utterly compromised (India is, for example, the largest manufacturer of fake drugs in the world) and there can be no assurance that drugs sourced from them will be of good quality or even real.Articles such as the one in today's paper that suggest that “great savings will be realised by the prison services” as a result of the change are highly misleading and evidence of a concerted effort by the Government to mislead the public on the issue. The Prison Service is doubtless already realising great savings by purchasing the quality generic drugs long available on the Island. There is another, to date unreported, effect of the change. I currently take a number of generic medications. I will not be taking generics manufactured in Brazil, Israel or India. Accordingly, I have attended with my doctor (who wholly supports my concerns) and we have agreed that the only solution is to revert to name brand pharmaceuticals. This will cost me more money but it will also cost my insurers substantially more. If everyone takes the same approach (and they absolutely should if they care about their health), the impact on the cost of healthcare will be very substantial. Presumably if we all hit the insurance companies where it hurts (their profits) they will be motivated to lobby for a reversal of this cynical policy.SICKENEDCity of Hamilton