RFID Labels On Prescription Drug Bottles

sonik1 writes "The New York Times is reporting that the Food and Drug Administration and several major drug makers are expected to announce an agreement Monday to put tiny radio antennas on the labels of millions of medicine bottles to combat counterfeiting and fraud. RFID labels provide a unique identifier that is almost impossible to copy. When pharmacists receive delivery, they should be able to pass a wand over the bottles and, through an online database, check the history of each. Each label costs 20 to 50 cents."

Comments

In the Money

[stecoop]

1) charge 20 to 50 per RFID label
2) Opt out
3) ???
4) Profit!!!

So I can save 20 to 50 cents on my perscription by choosing not to purchase the RFID label? 5 or 6 perscription you woule have saved enough get a cheap bottle of wine.

Re:In the Money

[Nurseman]

So I can save 20 to 50 cents on my perscription by choosing not to purchase the RFID label? 5 or 6 perscription you woule have saved enough get a cheap bottle of wine.

The 20 -50 cents will still be passed on to you, but the labels will be on the bulk bottles the pharmacy recieves. This will still not prevent the pharmacist from "diluting" the drug, which often happens with very expensive drugs, like chemotherapy agents, and HIV drugs. But it is a good start.

Re:In the Money

[BreadMan]

The expensive part when shipping scheduled drugs is having a pharmacist on hand to monitor the delivery. Before shipping scheduled drugs, a pharmacist must seal and sign off the shipment container and only a pharmacist can break the seal at delivery and count the drugs before they're locked away in inventory. Pharmacist labor is very expenisve ($50 - $70/hour) so being able to account for the contents of a sealed box would result in big cost savings.

>> This will still not prevent the pharmacist from "diluting" the drug
Tampering with a drug in this way would result the removal of your pharmacy license in a NY second. For injectable drugs, the pharmacy keeps very careful logs to prove how much medicine goes into each IV bag: who calculated the dose and how, who checked the calculations, who filled the order, who checked the order before filling (different than the person who does the filling) and who checked the bag before it went out. The system exists to minimize the possibility for error, an incorrect chemo dose could kill somebody. Besides, you couldn't get insurance for your pharmacy unless you kept these records.

Re:In the Money

[TarrVetus]

Sure, each label will cost 20 to 50 cents to manufacture individually, but let's think about the big picture:

1) Each company will have to set up a process (buya new machine, assembly line, etc...) to apply each label.
2) To combat fraud pharmacies will have to develop and purchase systems to read and catalogue the RFID signatures. More money.
3) The pharmacies will have to train employees to use this system. This means developing a training program which means--you guessed it--more money.

So, in the end, this is going to cost the consumers much more than 20 to 50 cents per label. Look for a noticeable drug price hike if this happens.

What does this have to do with my rights online?

[Chess_the_cat]

Why does it seem that RFID stories are automatically posted under My Rights Online?

special labels...

[emptybody]

because noone would ever tamper with the contents...

Humm

[Ambient_Developer]

So now they can tell which stuff came from canada, ingenious!

I'd usually be against RFIDs but...

[rocjoe71]

Well I'm not keen on RFIDs being anywhere, but I suppose there's no point complaining about them being on prescription containers, they already got my name and address on the things so I guess adding an RFID isn't going to make my prescriptions any less private.

Re:Paranoia fueling higher costs, yay!

[danheskett]

I certainly don't want to be heading towards the door with Oxy and have some hi-tech thief scan me and follow me home to rob me of the drugs I just purchased... Perhaps even someone could scan important/famous people and either blackmail them for their drug purchases (HIV/STDs) or just blatantly report it to the Fish Wrappers for cash.
This presumes that the thief would have access to the database of reference. The tag only contains a Unique ID, therefore, without the reference, the ID is useless. You or the famous person are at the type of risk you describe already if an untrustworthy person has access to your medical records or pharmacy records.

Once it does become viable for individual consumer bottles there will be yet another excuse why the prices need to continue to go up. Everything needs to cost more especially in the pharmaceutical industry. I swear everyone is in on it. I am told I need three low dose drugs when I have a feeling that a higher dose of another would handle it just fine. I am told that I am being prescribed these particular drugs because my coverage is good enough to afford it... It all leads to more money for everyone.
True. It is a corrupt system. But, on the other hand, millions of surgeries are avoided and lives preserved by the drugs every year.

Then WTF are we doing this? 20 cases of counterfeit drugs yet we have to spend thousands and thousands and pass that on to the consumer. Ugh. Yeah, they are going to say that we need to protect against a possible outbreak of this. Personally, I don't see how a label can help when the medicine inside is what is important. Anyone can swap out the real meds inside for their counterfeit ones.
The drugs that are reiceved are not usually in ready-to-distribute packages. The pharmacist takes from the big bottle and puts into your bottle. This is more dealing with the bottles that the pharmacist recieves. These are generally heavily tamper-resistant, especially for more dangerous drugs.

regionalism makes $ense.

[twitter]

Then WTF are we doing this? 20 cases of counterfeit drugs yet we have to spend thousands and thousands and pass that on to the consumer.

So that drug companies can keep people from importing drugs from Canada? Same drug, same label, different cost due to state controls. I'm sure the drug companies would consider their own pill a counterfeit under those circumstances. Drug companies could even demand special cash registers to deny sales, and I'm sure that's part of the thousands of dollars worth of cost and the "online" database. Welcome to entertainment style DRM for medicine.

I think I'm going to be sick.

ignore what they say and ask what it does.

[twitter]

because noone would ever tamper with the contents...

The only thing that makes sense is that drug companies are looking for a way to restrict sales of re imported drugs. It's not going to stop tampering and we can be sure that counterfeiters will be able to fake the RFIDs no matter what the drug companies do. If you can make one, someone can make one just like it. The only thing I can think of that works is computer enforced regional cost discrimination.

What this system will do is burn a pharmacy that's sold drugs that were bought on the cheap from Canada or South Africa. They own the database that says "counterfeit" and are forcing the pharmacy to buy equipment that respects that database. This will keep drug prices right where the companies want them by giving them a point of sale veto.

Welcome to the wonderful world of computer code law. The drug companies seem to have taken a hint from Holywood pimps and are designing cumbersome and error prone systems to stop anyone who'd try to get around their price structure. They don't care about your privacy or convenience, they just want your money. I'll bet that they even charge the pharmacy a fee for this wonderful new equipment on top of the equipment costs. They were unable to bribe enough state legislatures and get the crazy laws they want. Like DVD players, closed source software and video games, this new equipment will enforce laws that were never written.

Re:The Label is on the pharmacy bottles

[calibanDNS]

What bothers me about this argument is that if I'm taking prescription drugs, I now have to eat the increased cost of making sure that I'm given legitimate drugs. Sorry, but I feel that the drug distributing industry should have to be responsible for this particular service on its own. Loopholes in their system have allowed counterfeit drugs to slip in, and they should be the ones paying to fix it, not consumers who are alredy bogged down with the (sometimes exteremly high) cost of prescription drugs. Also, we're not just seeing the price of the RFID tag passed on to consumers, but also the cost of the equipment to check those tags at delivery sites.

I think it's worth it if the drug industry is paying for their own screw ups. In reality, the customers who are already the victims of counterfeit drugs are going to have to pay for this.

Re:FCC to install 'steal me' RFIDs

[Kombat]

Nice troll. What the heck, I'll bite.

1. RTFA. The RFIDs are on the bulk packaging received at the pharmacy, they are not on the small containers doled out to the customers.

2. Why would a junkie, desperate for his next hit, be driving around in a vehicle, with expensive remote-RFID sensing equipment, looking for prescription drugs? Why wouldn't he just sell the laptop/van and buy the heroin he wants?

3. Where would this highly-sophisticated, highly-educated, well-equipped drug addict get a copy of the confidential RFID tag database that he would need in order to make the connection that ID # 8736704385748932 is Penicillin? And if he is capable of hacking (oops, sorry, I mean "cracking") into Pfizer's mainframe and stealing databases, why wouldn't he instead just steal a credit card database?

4. When did anyone invent an RFID reader capable of reading passive RFID tags at a range greater than 3 yards, let alone the 75 feet from the street to your medicine cabinet?

5. Why wouldn't the junkie just skulk around a rich neighborhood, pick a big, dark house that looks empty, with no security alarm stickers in the window, break in, steal the jewelry, and pawn it for drugs? Why go through all the trouble/hassle of war-driving, reading a bunch of RFID tags for foot cremes, when the cheap, classic, time-tested methods still work just fine?

In what world do drug addicts have the intelligence, financial means, and patience to do the ridiculous things you suggest?

Re:FCC to install 'steal me' RFIDs

[keraneuology]

Great, and after a while you'll be able to wardrive around with a laptop and an antenna and see who has the really good narcotics in their cabinets. There will be more break-ins, since people will know where the 'good stuff' is located.

If you're that worried then unhook the battery and antenna attached to your bottle of v14g4r4 that will be required to broadcast the RFID through not only the medicine cabinet, but through the walls of your house.

RFID comes in both passive and active flavors and the passive kind that will unquestionably be used in pill bottles has a range that will - at best - be measured in inches. Not only that, but wardriving involves listening for signals that are already out there. To get a passive RFID read you need to transmit a signal - and cruising around the neighborhood broadcasting like that in the hopes that you can pick up the RFID tag on a bottle of p3ni5 pills that are still in the mailbox at the curb (which is as close as you'd have to be) is likely to attract a good deal of attention.

Re:The Label is on the pharmacy bottles

[THESuperShawn]

You make a very valid point. But, think of it this way.

The cost is about 20 cents (or 250 canadian dollars...just teasing) per bottle. That same bottle will fill several prescriptions. The costs to you will be anywhere from less than one cent to 20 cents max.

PLUS, your co-pay, if you are insured, is not going to change. Technically, you will not really pay anything.

Now, I know a valid argument can be made to say that any cost will make premiums go up, etc, BUT, think of this. RFID will cost much less to implement than child proof caps did and we did not pay a lot for them.

Seriously, I think it will be ok.

Then again, I do take a lot of said medication.....

Doesn't anyone remember the old saying...

[cmdrwhitewolf]

About locks & thieves?

"Making more complex locks just makes for more highly skilled thieves, not less thieves."

Basically this is alluding to the fact that good security is not just about making better safes & locks, (because there will always be a thief who will open/crack them), but deciding how to keep the larger portion of the population from profiting off of your "valuable" items.

Re:FCC to install 'steal me' RFIDs

[garcia]

I have a feeling that the junkies wouldn't be doing this themselves. The underground distributers would be the ones getting the drugs via the tags. The junkies would just buy the end product much later from a street dealer flunkie.

What drug price dilemma?

[Phronesis]

There's actually less risk of getting counterfeit drugs in Canada than in a US pharmacy because Canada regulates pharmacies tightly, while the US allows almost anyone to get a pharmaceutical distributor's license---even felons.

Also, the story that drugs are more expensive in the US is largely an urban myth. Patent-protected drugs without significant competitors are more expensive in the US, but because of free-market competition, generics are a lot cheaper here than in Europe or Canada. Malcolm Gladwell wrote an excellent article on this topic in The New Yorker a couple of weeks ago:

It is not accurate to say, then, that the United States has higher prescription-drug prices than other countries. It is accurate to say only that the United States has a different pricing system from that of other countries. Americans pay more for drugs when they first come out and less as the drugs get older, while the rest of the world pays less in the beginning and more later. Whose pricing system is cheaper? It depends. If you are taking Mevacor for your cholesterol, the 20-mg. pill is two-twenty-five in America and less than two dollars if you buy it in Canada. But generic Mevacor (lovastatin) is about a dollar a pill in Canada and as low as sixty-five cents a pill in the United States.

If drug companies or the FDA were making the US market much more inefficient than European or Canadian markets, this would not be the case. According to Gladwell, pharmaceutical prices in the US have risen only at about the rate of inflation, but pharmaceutical spending has risen much faster because people are taking more drugs than ever before. If pills cost the same as five years ago, but you take twice as many pills, your pharmacy bills will rise and it's not the fault of the drug companies or the FDA.

Moderators on drugs?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why was this nut moderated upward?

> RFID tags have a VERY limited range

And what is the limit? It's usually the power received at the RFID. You can either use a larger coil or use a more powerful transmitter. I haven't had trouble receiving the signal back from the tag, but I've had trouble quite a few times powering the tag. A more powerful (read that as illegal) transmitter can greatly increase the range at which you can get an RFID tag to power-up.

Re:Counterfeit drugs are a BIG problem!

[Overzeetop]

many of which are resold back to the major pharma companies

So...they'll end up with "pure as the driven snow" RFID tags when they're repackaged by the pharma cos for distribution to retailers.

Part of the problem...

This looks like a regulatory issue, and has very little to do with the enduser. It looks a lot like proper oversight and policing of pharmaceutical distribution licenses is more likely to catch the bad guys than RFID tags and scans.