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Court Orders Rx Depot to Close

November 7, 2003
A U.S. District Court in Oklahoma has ordered the drug store chain Rx Depot Inc. to stop helping Americans import discounted prescription drugs. Judge Claire Eagan said the company's business breaks the law and the quality of the drugs may be unreliable.

Eagan gave Rx Depot 10 days to send a letter to its customers informing them that the company was breaking the law and warning them that "the safety, purity and efficacy of (its) drug products ... cannot be assured."

The ruling was a victory for the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which had asked the court to stop Rx Depot from helping Americans purchase discounted prescription drugs from Canada. The FDA has warned that drugs from other countries do not have the same assurances of safety as those regulated by the United States.

"This ruling sends a clear signal that those who would put profit before safety will not be allowed to threaten the public health," FDA Associate Commissioner William Hubbard said in a statement.

"Congress needs to take effective action to provide access to safe and affordable drugs for all Americans through actions like a Medicare prescription drug benefit and new laws to improve access to inexpensive generic drugs -- laws that are pending in front of Congress right now," Hubbard said.

Rx Depot operates via storefronts that send customers' prescriptions to Canada, and a Canadian pharmacy then ships the medicines directly to the customers.

Oklahoma-based Rx Depot said in a statement on its Web site that the company would appeal immediately and urged customers to call lawmakers to protest.

``This decision is to effectively shut down physical storefronts in the U.S. keeping primarily our senior citizens from receiving help to access the cheaper Canadian market,'' it said.

Prescription drugs are usually drastically cheaper in Canada. But the FDA has opposed efforts in Congress to create an importation plan that supporters say would help the elderly pay for medicine.

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