Why we pay so much for drugs

Time Cover story - While there is no doubt that counterfeit and adulterated medicines—some potentially injurious, possibly even lethal—are sold over the Internet by unscrupulous vendors, a TIME investigation suggests the FDA's actions against Canadian imports have been part of a concerted campaign to simultaneously discredit its counterpart agency in Canada, provoke fear among American consumers who buy their drugs there, blunt an exploding political movement among local and state governments to begin wholesale drug buys in Canada and ultimately preserve the inflated prices charged U.S. consumers and taxpayers.

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