Wyeth had decided… To hell with this Senior Discount Law. Mercury pharmacists are Wyeth’s implementer of this defiance of R.A. 7432. Mercury pharmacists support Wyeth’s scheme against Filipino Seniors.

Is Mercury Drug aware that too many of its pharmacists are surreptitiously or mindlessly in cahoots with Wyeth in this scheme to defy R.A. 9257?

I urge any Senior to walk to a Mercury counter and experience The Experience first-hand. Mercury pharmacists are mostly with unfriendly one-track minds. Be very alert or they will be selling you the most expensive brands, just like what most physicians want you to buy. You must keep repeating, "Generic, Generic, GENERIC!!!" Are pharmacists grouchy because they are too overworked? Are pharmacists extremely put upon, over-rushed, overstressed? Is having to attend to a Senior the low point in their day because of all the forms, IDs, writings, backtrackings, re-checking, recording, erasing, reading, additions and subtractions on the costs, arithmetic needed in calculating the 20 percent discount? The point is they almost always face the senior with a long face, like, "What? Another Senior customer?"

My prescription is for Calcium with D. The grouch comes back with "Caltrate is the only calcium with D, and no Senior discount; not even with prescription." Why not? "Mercury Drug policy. We follow what the manufacturer tells us." But there is a law… there is a LAW that allows me to get a discount when I have a doctor’s prescription for therapy for an existing illness. "No Senior discount." Why not? "Because Caltrate PLUS is only a supplement, not a medicine." But this same pharmacist unthinkingly agrees to give me a discount for any other brand of calcium that the store carries. What’s Wyeth scheme? Excessive profit from Seniors?

Is there a Filipino power broker in the payroll of Wyeth to undermine this Senior discount law?

My issue in this piece is that calcium tablets manufactured by Wyeth Pharmaceutical Company Limited in China, #4 Boadai West Road, Suzhou, Jiangsu Province 215128. It is manufactured in China and the tablet is probably costing three times more in the Philippines than anywhere else. The excessive profit is pocketed by Wyeth Consumer Healthcare, a division of Wyeth Philippines Inc., 2236 Chino Roces Avenue, Makati City.

On what privilege and whose authority give Mercury pharmacists the right to protect the multinational Wyeth in defying R.A. 7432, the Senior Citizen discount law? Doesn’t Mercury and its staff have an ethical pledge to protect patients? Mercury must have a copy of R.A. 7432.

Wyeth, in fact, markets its calcium on its ads as therapy with specificity, not as food supplement: "The Risk of Osteoporosis: Osteoporosis affects middle-aged and older persons, especially those with a family history of fragile bones in later years. A lifetime of regular exercise and a healthy diet that includes calcium builds and maintains good bone health, and may reduce the risk of osteoporosis later in life. Recently, scientists have determined that even post-menopausal women can benefit from greater calcium intake. Start building your defense against osteoporosis. It’s never too late for Caltrate PLUS."