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WeirdAl
07-25-2003, 03:28 PM
House passes drug import bill

Opposition argues patient safety will be sacrificed


ASSOCIATED PRESS

WASHINGTON, July 25 — The House approved legislation early Friday to allow the importation of lower-cost prescription drugs from industrialized nations, brushing aside opposition from the Bush administration and a fierce lobbying campaign by the pharmaceutical industry.

THE VOTE was 243-186, and sent the measure to the Senate, where it faced an uncertain fate.
“I was not sent here by drug companies and I will not stand here and see American seniors take a back seat to the pharmaceutical industry,” said Rep. Jo Ann Emerson, R-Missouri.
“A bottle of tamoxifen, used to fight breast cancer, costs $360 in the United States. It costs $60 in Germany,” she added.
But critics argued the bill, while it held out the hope of lower prices, would sacrifice patient safety.
“The country is going to be flooded with unsafe pharmaceutical counterfeits, over-age pharmaceuticals, pharmaceuticals that don’t preserve and protect the safety of our citizens,” said Rep. John Dingell, a Michigan Democrat who has worked across the decades for patient safety legislation.
The bill was brought to the floor under unusual circumstances. Republican leaders oppose it, but Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., agreed to allow a vote last month as part of an agreement for Emerson to vote for Medicare prescription drug legislation.
Congress has approved legislation twice before dealing with the drug importation issue, but both times said the secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services would first have to certify that the drugs would be safe. Neither Donna Shalala, who served under former President Clinton, nor Tommy Thompson, who holds office under President Bush, was willing to do so.
The vote was designed to force House and Senate bargainers to accept the legislation as part of a Medicare prescription drug bill.

‘DANGEROUS LEGISLATION’
But even as it was passing, 53 senators declared their opposition to any change in law that would remove deny the secretary of HHS the ability to decide whether importation was safe.
The House bill, backed by Republican Reps. Gil Gutknecht of Minnesota and Emerson, as well as Rep. Rahm Emanuel of Illinois, ordered HHS to set up a system to allow importation of FDA-approved drugs from FDA-approved facilities in Canada, the European Union and seven other nations.

The measure also would require imported medicine to be shipped in anti-tampering and anti-counterfeiting packaging.
But the Bush administration issued a statement calling the bill “dangerous legislation.”
And FDA Commissioner Mark McClellan said the measure “creates a wide channel for large volumes of unapproved drugs and other products to enter the United States that are potentially injurious to public health and pose a threat to the security of our nation’s drug supply.”
The measure had wide appeal to consumers — thousands of whom have ridden in buses to Canada in recent years to buy lower-cost drugs. And several lawmakers accused the drug industry of merely trying to protect its own profits. Liberal Rep. Bernard Sanders, I-Vt., saying it had spread “lies, lies, and lies again” in an effort to kill the bill, while conservative Rep. Dan Burton, R-Ind., said, “it’s not about safety, it’s about money.”

ONE-SIDED LOBBYING
But the lobbying seemed one-sided.
Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland, a liberal Democrat and head of the Congressional Black Caucus, said only one outside group had contacted him, the pharmaceutical industry.
‘We do believe there is a safety problem.’
— MARK GRAYSON
Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America And in Indiana, Eli Lilly & Co. ran newspaper advertisements in GOP Rep. Dan Burton’s district attacking the bill that he supporters. Burton, a conservative Republican, ran radio advertisements in response.
“We do believe there is a safety problem,” said Mark Grayson, a spokesman for the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, known as PhRMA. He also said the legislation would import the system of price controls that foreign government impose on drugs.
He said he didn’t know how much the group was spending the defeat the bill, adding, “We don’t discuss that.”
The pharmaceutical industry made more than $20 million in political contributions in the past election, with roughly $8 of every $10 going to Republicans, according to an analysis by the Center for Responsive Politics.
PhRMA itself gave more than $3 million and spent more than $14 million lobbying Congress on various issues last year. In addition, the organization gave millions last year to an organization that aired television commercials on behalf of candidates who backed a GOP-written prescription drug bill.

STRANGE BEDFELLOWS
Individuals who rarely agreed on anything worked to defeat the measure.



They included the Traditional Values Coalition and the Rev. Jerry Falwell, both warning that the bill could allow importation of the morning-after abortion drug RU-486; and Rep. Bobby Rush, D-Ill., a liberal Democrat who represents an inner-city Chicago district.
In a letter to all House members, he warned the bill could divide the country into two groups: one, middle class and suburban “will be able to pay higher prices for the medicines they need.” The other, he said will be “economically disadvantaged ... including a significant portion of the minority community.” Those Americans, he said, won’t be able to afford what American drugs cost and will wind up with “cheap, reimported, cut-rate medications sold through knockoff drugstores.”
Also opposed to the bill was the National Medical Association, an organization of black physicians, which cited concern about safety issues. The association also receives support from PhRMA, which was a corporate sponsor at the group’s 2002 annual convention.
Given the circumstances, the customary party lobbying was suspended.

Saks
07-25-2003, 04:31 PM
So is this good or bad? I work for a pharmaceutical company, yet I had not heard this.

footballcat
07-25-2003, 04:48 PM
can someone sum this upin like a sentence

Badgermoon
07-25-2003, 05:07 PM
Sounds like much of the same rhetoric used when generic drugs came on the market.

bigherc
07-25-2003, 05:16 PM
can someone sum this upin like a sentence......

It is now legal to import prescription drugs from other countries that may offer the medications at cheaper prices. Like ummm, MExico

WeirdAl
07-25-2003, 05:21 PM
actually, not legal yet. The house passed it, the senate still needs to and the president would have to sign it to make it a law (if i remember my schoolhouse rock :D)

benchpress59
07-25-2003, 05:41 PM
In brief:

1) The FDA currently makes the decisions as to wht drugs are permitted to be sold in the US and which ones aren't.

2) Large Pharmaceutical Companies have a vested interested in squelching competition, and have been effective in lobbying the FDA to keep out most medicines and pharmaceuticals that are made in most other countries.

3) Many have argued (including us Libertarian Economists) that the double standard is ridiculous: We allow people with a Malian Drivers License to come here and operate a 10,000 pound vehicle on public streets without knowing a word of English or having driven on the right side of the road, but we don't allow in a medicine that might cure someone...

4) The House has passed the bill. Senate passage is doubtful right now, but possible. It is ONE of the steps that MUST be taken to dsimantle the FDA's authority to direct individual's health care. (Other options include Compacts with all industrial nations, restricting the FDA's role to safety and *not* efficacy, or limiting them to certifying but not prohibiting new drugs. Each of these reforms will be oposed by the FDA and the Industry, both of which will lose power...in the meantime, consumers and sick people will gain choices, competition, lower prices, and better health).

Not that I have strong feelings about this or anything.....

Badgermoon
07-25-2003, 09:41 PM
Don't forget that there is another group with a vested interest in this, as Al reported. Those who want to keep RU486 out of the US for reasons of personal morals.
I don't get that argument at all. If they don't want to use RU486, then no one is going to force them to. I wish they could let people decide for themselves what they want to do on that subject. Who died and made them God?

4play
07-26-2003, 01:52 AM
hey weirdal, keep us posted on this and let us know if the senate passes this, very good post bro

benchpress59
07-26-2003, 08:09 AM
Originally posted by Badgermoon
Don't forget that there is another group with a vested interest in this, as Al reported. Those who want to keep RU486 out of the US for reasons of personal morals.

Actually, under the current bill as written, this is a NON-ISSUE. In fact, I personally oppose RU486 but favor the bill. The bill only allows the importantion of drugs that are already legal in the US, but manufactured outside of the USA, and therefore, RU486 is not covered by it.

I have a feeling that this was a non-issue raised by an Industry lobbyist in an effort to raise the ire of the religious right against the bill. I hope it doesn't work. I am actually a guest speaker on a Christian radio station on Monday in support of the bill
:D