The Canadian state has, once again, resorted to murdering its own citizens to protect its vaunted monopoly over health care services and pharmaceuticals:
Cancer patients desperate enough to order cheaper, unlicensed versions of the drug thalidomide from Mexico now face another challenge to getting treatment: Federal authorities have reportedly begun seizing supplies of the life-extending medicine at the border.
"Health Canada is stopping every single box of thalidomide," said an official with a Mexican company that makes the pills, who asked not to be named. "Patients are starting to die because of this."
Patient advocates said they had also heard reports that Health Canada and the Canada Border Services Agency have instituted a crackdown on shipments of thalidomide from Mexico and other developing countries.
Health Canada officials would not comment directly on whether they had stepped up seizures, but said their policy has always been to bar unsanctioned imports of such drugs into the country.
The "single payer" provincial governments that centrally plan health care spending won't reimburse patients for the cost of purchasing thalidomide "legally," hence these law-breaking cancer patients had to resort to the marketplace. Since the Canadian state forbids peaceful exchange, the only option for some of the people who require thalidomide to live is to, well, die.
You can see why government-controlled health care is so appealing to the Obama regime. It's hard to resist giving yourself even more power to decide who lives and who dies. There's nothing more fun than playing God, right?
Source: Mises Economics Blog
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