It's yet one more unscrupulous tactic from an industry that will do anything to control the market and boost profits -- even if it means denying prescriptions to customers in Canada who might be depending on them. One U.S. organization that's been very creative in finding ways to circumvent this FDA / pharmaceutical monopoly is the American Drug Club, and they've just announced they're going to start filling prescriptions from the U.K. to cover the manipulated prescription shortages in Canada.
See, the last thing U.S. pharmaceutical companies want is a free market. They don't want free trade, and the've signed up the FDA to enforce their domestic monopoly. That's why you see the FDA passing new regulations and scaring people with lies about Canadian drugs being "more dangerous" than the same drugs purchased in the U.S. If they are more dangerous, asked the Governor of Minnesota, where are all the dead Canadians?
The fact is, we now live in a global marketplace. With the Internet (which the FDA and pharmaceutical companies would rather shut down, by the way), people can share information about prescriptions and even place international orders. For some elderly folks, a savings of just $50 / month is a very big deal. But in the U.S., the drug companies would much rather exploit all the old folks and figure out ways to extract as much money from them as possible, regardless of the ethics involved. That's bad medicine, and it's standard practice here in the United States, where ethics never get in the way of making a buck.
Maybe the FDA will learn from the U.S. military and just start torturing people who run online pharmacies. I'm sure Fox News would report it as completely justified. Since everything in this country is framed in terms of war, they could call it, "The War on Drugs." Hey, isn't there already a war on drugs?