JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
For years, some people have been buying their prescription drugs from pharmacies outside the U.S. Now changes are coming to personal import rules which could make that harder. NPR pharmaceuticals correspondent Sydney Lupkin reports.
SYDNEY LUPKIN, BYLINE: Ginny Boynton, a retired lawyer in central Pennsylvania, has a rare neuromuscular disease called Lambert-Eaton myasthenic syndrome, or LEMS. She tried the branded drug available in the U.S., but it caused her to have seizures. So with her doctor's blessing and a prescription, she imports a different drug, not available in the U.S., from Germany. But a change in import rules aimed at modernization and preventing bad actors from sneaking in illegal goods, could make it much more difficult.
GINNY BOYNTON: The thing that is frightening about the possibility of losing the medicine that I'm currently importing from Germany is not even just losing that medicine, but it's thinking that I might have to go back to the medicine that caused seven seizures.
LUPKIN: A 90-day supply of pharmaceuticals for personal use with a prescription usually passes through customs fairly easily as long as it's valued below $800.
BENJAMIN ENGLAND: Basically, the idea was it's so low in value there's no reason for customs to waste its time in trying to collect a duty on $800 or less.
LUPKIN: That was Benjamin England, who worked at the Food and Drug Administration for 17 years before becoming a consultant for businesses that import and export FDA-regulated products. But a rule change at U.S. Customs and Border Protection would require more paperwork, a broker and something called an entry bond, basically a guarantee to cover any import duties or fees.
ENGLAND: How do I get a bond? We're going to say, here, call this number. And then you're going to realize that you can't get a bond, right? You're not in the business of importing. So how do you get a bond? So it's going to probably choke for a while until the outrage.
LUPKIN: Because it would make importing more expensive or even impossible for the estimated 2 million patients who import medicines for personal use. Tim Smith is the general manager of the Canadian International Pharmacy Association, and he says U.S. patients are nervous. They import things like inhalers, blood thinners and cholesterol medicine.
TIM SMITH: People have been importing their medications for many years, and they've been doing it because of price, because it costs a fraction of what it does in the United States. And with this change, they don't know what they're going to do.
LUPKIN: The customs rule change was originally set to take effect October 22 but has been pushed back to January of next year. A customs spokesman tells NPR this will give stakeholders more time to prepare for the change. Sydney Lupkin, NPR News. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.