Date Added: 2009-08-03 06:30:09

Aug. 2--Some consumers buy drugs in Canada to save money.

Others, like the family of 2-year-old Bladen Arndt of Newport, cross the border for what they consider lifesaving drugs because they can't get them in the United States.

Sabril, the drug Bladen takes to prevent seizures, remains unavailable in the United States, though it has been widely available abroad for more than a decade. Sabril was approved in January by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, but it has not yet reached U.S. pharmacies.

"To me, it's been a miracle drug," said Shannon Arndt, a mother of three. Bladen's seizures have virtually stopped, she said. He lives with tuberous sclerosis, a hereditary problem that causes tumors to grow on his organs, including his brain, which trigger seizures.

Aside from one stop by Detroit customs agents, the family has had no problems getting the medicine. They now buy them by mail order from Hunter's Pharmacy, a Windsor drug store that requires a U.S. doctor to write the prescription. A Canadian doctor cosigns.

Bladen's physician, Dr. Harry Chugani, an epilepsy specialist at Children's Hospital of Michigan in Detroit, said many of his patients have purchased Sabril abroad.

"I'd go over myself" if he or a family member needed a drug and it wasn't in the United States, he said.

Arndt said she would switch to a domestic source of the drug if it were stocked in the country -- if the family's insurance pays for it.

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