According to Helen Disney of the Stockholm Network:

"parallel trade in medicines is in a different league to, say, parallel trade in handbags or jeans. Why? Because the opportunities for public harm are so much greater. Parallel trade is legal in Europe but, by its nature, it opens up much wider possibilities for unscrupulous individuals to insert counterfeit or substandard medicines into the legitimate distribution chain. These fakes have the potential to do great harm to the public and yet there is very low awareness of this problem among patients or indeed among many health professionals who prescribe medicines. US patients may wish for cheaper medicines but, by granting their wish, the US government could be doing more harm than good, unless it sets very strict guidelines in place - and even then, the risks of public harm will be greater then they currently seem."

But before condemming free trade in pharmaceuticals, we should look at the facts. Yes, Pfizer says free trade is dangerous. But exactly how dangerous?

Pfizer's vice president of global security, John Theriault, argues against free trade in pharmaceuticals, but when CBS News pushed him on the question of how many cases of death or serious disease had occured because of parallel trade among Europe's 457,000,000 people, he said: "there have been none known due to this practice."

That's right, for something Pfizer denounces as dangerous, a population of 457 million people can't show a single case of anyone being harmed.