This is all about the political clout of the big drug companies being used to stomp out potential competitors. This type of thing has happened in every industry -- going beyond our borders to bring in cheaper product and undercut American manufacturers -- and now it's crept into the pharmaceutical industry. The difference is this industry has a ton of clout in Washington. JMM and his Dad up against this type of opposition is a bigger mismatch than the Revs taking on Real Madrid best of seven. I'd love to see them prevail though.
Re: Re: Re: reimportation is bad for America Viread's trials were NIH funded. How about Taxol (not on that list, but entirely developed by NIH). http://abcnews.go.com/sections/wnt/YourMoney/taxol_costs030606.html That's all in excess of what we already fund through the Research and Experimentation Tax Credit (see the Internal Revenue Code, Section 41), which allows a company a tax credit in the amount of 20% of all Research and Experimentation expenses in excess of the average amount incurred during the prior 4 years, but no more than 10% of the current year's R&D expenses. (note that there are exceptions, including a phase in of the credit for new companies, or companies just beginning to incur substantial R&D costs, and there is an alternative incremental credit that can be taken instead) To take an example, Pfizer expended 14,205 million USD on R&D during fiscal years 1998 through 2001, (their fiscal year is the calendar year). The company expended 5,176 million USD on R&D in FY 2002. Take half of that to determine the maximum base for the credit (2,588 million USD), then calculate the average of the four prior years R&D (3,551.25 million USD) and subtract that from the current year's expenses (5,176 million USD) to get the calculated base (1,624.75 million USD). In this case, the calculated base is already less than the maximum, so you take 20% of the calculated base. That means that they were eligible to claim an R&E tax credit of 324.95 million USD in FY 2002. (they may have claimed the alternate credit, which I calculated as 131.54 million USD, which therefore they wouldn't take, since it's lower than the standard credit). That's 324.95 million USD in unreceived federal income taxes which went to fund Pfizer's R&D in FY 2002.
Actually, Amazon.com has specific websites for various countries. If you choose to buy from a website not marketing to your country, then you're going to pay international shipping for getting the different price that's charged in say, Canada.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Look at the source If you mean publicity stunt designed to bring awareness to the alternate perspectives (ie, American anti-war sentiment) not being covered by hawkish media outlets like Fox News, then you've got that right. I'm not sure what your "And Puma" comment is relating to, but I'll assume that means PUMA which is part of OECD, the French thinktank. As if being funded by the French lent some sort of independence when it comes to corporations. My grandparents don't have a checkbook burden. Believe it or not, medicare (in the form of Medicare+Choice plans or Medigap, but not Medicare parts A or B, except limited outpatient drugs) covers those type of expenses for all old people in this country. They might pay some out of pocket expenses for over the counter drugs or experimental drugs, but then so do I. If they did have a checkbook burden, you can be sure that my relatives and I would cover it for them. This isn't about checkbook burdens though, this is about whether or not the public funds development of drugs, and whether or not there is adequate competition to prevent oligopolies from controlling entrance to the market, thereby stifling price competition, and if so (and I would argue that that is indeed the case) what should be done about it.