For years, the FDA has defended its efforts to intercept prescription drugs coming from abroad by mail as necessary to keep out dangerous opioids, including fentanyl.
The pharmaceutical industry frequently cites such concerns in its battle to stymie numerous proposals in Washington to allow Americans to buy drugs from Canada and other countries where prices are almost always much lower.
But the agency’s own data from recent years on its confiscation of packages containing drugs coming through international mail provides scant evidence that a significant number of opioids enters this way. In the two years for which KHN obtained data from the agency, only a tiny fraction of the drugs inspected contained opioids.
The overwhelming majority were uncontrolled prescription drugs that people had ordered, presumably because they can’t afford the prices at home.
The FDA still stops those drugs, because they lack U.S. labeling and packaging, which federal authorities say ensure they were made under U.S. supervision and tracking.
The FDA said it found 33 packages of opioids and no fentanyl sent by mail in 2022 out of nearly 53,000 drug shipments its inspectors examined at international mail facilities. That’s about 0.06% of examined packages.
According to a detailed breakdown of drugs intercepted in 2020, the lion’s share of what was intercepted — and most often destroyed — was pharmaceuticals. The No. 1 …