I strongly dislike how the argument hinges on the very movable goalpost of "illegal" drugs. It has this awful moralizing "protect the kids while we destroy privacy", vibe to it.
At first I though this would require an end-run on HIPAA, but all they really need to do is re-schedule a bunch of therapeutic drugs. Or ignore the FDA entirely and just enforce a ban by edict (somehow) through a different agency. I don't think we've ever seen federal agencies openly disagree like that before, but I think it's possible. Also: big pharma may have something to say about all this.
Like a lot of the nonsense coming from this cabinet, it'll test the crap out of state's rights.
Big pharma will love it. All the drugs they made with expired patents are now illegal. Good thing they've got a very, very, very similar drug that meets all the necessary criteria, all lined up and ready to replace it (with a brand new patent, of course).
There has been some controversy about AstraZeneca's behaviour in creating, patenting, and marketing the drug. Esomeprazole's successful predecessor, omeprazole, is a mixture of two mirror-imaged molecules (esomeprazole which is the S-enantiomer, and R-omeprazole); critics said the company was trying to "evergreen" its omeprazole patent by patenting the pure esomeprazole and aggressively marketing to doctors that it is more effective than the mixture.[50]
While the impact of CFCs from inhalers on the ozone layer had been minuscule (dwarfed by industrial processes using CFCs), the FDA in its interpretation of the Montreal Protocol mandated the switch in propellants.[17] Patients expressed concern about the high price of the HFA inhalers as there were initially no generic versions, whereas generic CFC inhalers had been available.[18]