Days before it was to go into effect, the Trump administration pushed back a U.S. customs rule threatening the supply of vital prescription drugs imported by millions of Americans.<\/p>\n
Under the rule, Customs and Border Protection and the FDA will require coding on packages that makes it easier to know what\u2019s in them. It is aimed at collecting tariffs on even low-value imports, and at catching illegal drugs like fentanyl. It will also add costs and complex paperwork to each order.<\/p>\n
Now the regulation, which was set to start Oct. 22, is delayed<\/a> until Jan. 20.<\/p>\n While it is illegal to import most FDA-approved prescription drugs, the U.S. has allowed<\/a> Americans to import legal medications in small quantities for personal use since 2003. The FDA rarely inspects the parcels.<\/p>\n \u201cThe information we have is there\u2019s going to be a complete shutdown on Oct. 22,\u201d Tim Smith, general manager of the Canadian International Pharmacy Association, said in an interview in early October. The 51 licensed retail<\/a> pharmacies<\/a> in his organization urged their hundreds of thousands of U.S. customers to file extra orders before Oct. 9 to be sure as many medications as possible arrived before the clampdown, Smith said.<\/p>\n \u201cThese are people in every case who have gone to the doctor, gotten a prescription for whatever, gone to the pharmacy to fill the order, seen how expensive it\u2019s going to be, and then looked for an alternative,\u201d he said. \u201cThose are the people who\u2019ve been coming to us for years.\u201d<\/p>\n As Donald Trump campaigned in 2016, allowing people to import drugs was part of his platform. In his first term, President Trump let states buy cheaper drugs from Canada. He told Floridians at 2020 rallies that their state could \u201cgo to Canada\u201d to obtain drugs for them.<\/p>\n But while Florida and Colorado joined the importation program<\/a>, neither state has brought in any drugs yet.<\/p>\n Patients have, however, and they flooded authorities with at least 109,000 letters urging the FDA to clarify that the rule won\u2019t stop personal-use drug shipments, said Ken Hunter, executive director of the Campaign for Personal Prescription Importation. And Trump ally Laura Loomer called the rule a case of stupidity or sabotage, under a headline<\/a> that asked, \u201cSo Why Is Someone in His Administration Trying To Make Prescription Drugs More Expensive Before The Midterms?\u201d<\/p>\n Seventy-one congressional Democrats signed an Oct. 1 petition<\/a> led by Reps. Jan Schakowsky of Illinois and Mark Pocan of Wisconsin to warn about the potential impact of the rule. Three House Republicans from Florida wrote separately<\/a> to CBP and the FDA, noting that Floridians, unlike Americans in Northern states, can\u2019t easily drive to Canada to buy medicine.<\/p>\n By cutting off imports, Hunter said, \u201cthey are going to lose millions, maybe billions in tariff revenue.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhy would you want to cut off this massive revenue source?\u201d he asked. \u201cWhy would they want to cut people off from lifesaving medications two weeks before midterms?\u201d<\/p>\n Pressure by advocacy groups may have led the agency to back off, said Lucia Mueller, president of PharmacyChecker, which helps patients find legitimate pharmacies to obtain cheaper drugs.<\/p>\n \u201cLoomer\u2019s political argument is sound,\u201d she told KFF Health News. \u201cWe know she\u2019s had Trump\u2019s ear before.\u201d<\/p>\n The agency\u2019s Oct. 14 news release on the delay said it would help \u201cavoid disruptions to certain international postal shipments.\u201d It didn\u2019t specifically refer to drug imports.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is an important short-term success,\u201d said Gabriel Levitt, founder of Prescription Justice, a nonprofit that advocates for more-affordable drugs. \u201cHowever, the underlying threat to personal prescription drug importation remains, and the next 90 days will be critical.\u201d<\/p>\n A 2020 study<\/a> found that 2.3 million Americans regularly imported medications from abroad, and some surveys show<\/a> much higher numbers. About 4 in 10 Americans in a recent KFF survey<\/a> said cost had led them to not take medications as prescribed over the past year.<\/p>\n When he was diagnosed with atrial fibrillation years ago, Leslie Waters learned that a 90-day supply of the blood thinner Eliquis, or apixaban, would cost $486. \u201cHoly crap!\u201d said the retired computer scientist, who said he lives off a monthly $1,886 Social Security check. Waters, of San Jose, California, learned about the Canada option on the internet and has been buying 90-day supplies from a pharmacy there for $57, including shipping.<\/p>\n Under previous administrations, orders worth $800 or less weren\u2019t taxed or saddled with extensive paperwork. The new rule will require shippers of even low-value international parcels to transmit detailed information about their contents to CBP, along with tariff payments, which must be transmitted through a licensed customer broker.<\/p>\n Zonos, a U.S.-based company that handles logistics for mail from Canada and other countries, told clients in early September that its understanding was that CBP would no longer allow in personal prescription drug packages after the rule took effect, said Smith, of the Canadian pharmacy trade group. In an Oct. 6 webinar, Zonos senior broker Angela Macke said that the company would continue to ship the drugs but that it didn\u2019t know whether the agencies would let them reach patients.<\/p>\n The pharmacy announcements have frightened thousands of customers, said Bill Hepscher, whose company, Canadian Medstore, has six Florida storefronts that help patients import drugs.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s really been hair on fire,\u201d he said. \u201cI could spend my entire day fielding phone calls from people saying: \u2018Can I no longer get my Eliquis? I could have a blood clot or stroke!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Hepscher said about half his clients buy their drugs from Canada, with many of the others buying from Australia, New Zealand, the U.K., or Turkey. He said 2025 was his company\u2019s busiest year ever \u2014 changes to Medicare drug plans and increased enrollment in high-deductible Affordable Care Act plans had led seniors and younger people facing higher costs and copays to seek Canadian drugs.<\/p>\n \u201cI only have 23 days\u2019 worth of pills,\u201d Roland Hofferber told KFF Health News in early October. The retired supply chain engineer in Muscatine, Iowa, takes Jardiance, also known as empagliflozin, to slow his chronic kidney disease. \u201cIf I don\u2019t get some through pretty soon, I\u2019m going to have to cut back or quit.\u201d<\/p>\n The drug would cost him $641 for three months in the U.S., he said. He buys a generic from an Indian pharmacy for $54.<\/p>\n The FDA \u201chasn\u2019t given parameters as to what they will approve and what they won\u2019t,\u201d Zonos\u2019 Macke said during the webinar. \u201cWe\u2019ve been told there will not be a general ban. But we cannot reassure U.S. patients. We have to see how FDA applies. They could be lenient. They could be very strict.\u201d<\/p>\n When asked whether patients could still import prescription medicines, CBP spokesperson Jessica Turner said that pharmaceuticals remained under the FDA\u2019s jurisdiction and that the FDA \u201cwill continue to determine whether imported medication shipments are admissible.\u201d Department of Health and Human Services spokesperson Emily Hilliard said the FDA would \u201ccontinue to evaluate personal imports on a case-by-case basis.\u201d<\/p>\n White House spokesperson Allison Schuster did not respond to questions about imports but said Trump \u201cremains dedicated to lowering the cost of prescription drugs.\u201d<\/p>\n Since summer 2025, patients have had to pay tariffs on brand-name medicine shipments. In 2022, the FDA said it typically checked about 1 in 2,000 medication packages passing through U.S. customs.<\/p>\n \u201cA lot of products weren\u2019t even looked at, because CBP and FDA didn\u2019t have full visibility\u201d into what entered the country, Prescription Justice\u2019s Levitt said. The rule requires shippers to post a bond and fill in a complex data form for each package, he noted.<\/p>\n \u201cLet\u2019s say you\u2019re importing 90 days\u2019 worth of Eliquis,\u201d Levitt said. \u201cFDA can now look on a screen and see that. Do they let it in, or refuse it under law?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIf they don\u2019t, there\u2019s going to be a cohort of people who cannot afford their drugs anymore,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd those people are going to suffer.\u201d<\/p>\n KFF Health News<\/a> is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF\u2014an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n This article<\/a> first appeared on KFF Health News<\/a> and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Days before it was to go into effect, the Trump administration pushed back a U.S. customs rule threatening the supply of vital prescription drugs imported by millions of Americans. Under the rule, Customs and Border Protection and the FDA will require coding on packages that makes it easier to know what\u2019s in them. It is…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":16259,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16258","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16258"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16258"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16258\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/16259"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16258"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16258"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16258"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}