House OKs Imported Prescription Drugs

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http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=healthNews & storyID=3160297

 

House OKs Imported Prescription Drugs

Fri July 25, 2003 09:47 AM ET

By Julie Rovner

WASHINGTON (Reuters Health) - The U.S. House of Representatives early Friday

morning approved a bill to make it easier for Americans to purchase U.S.

brand-name drugs intended for sale in other countries

Despite a furious lobbying battle against the bill waged by the drug industry

and the Bush administration, the vote was 243 to 186in favor of the measure.

Rep. Jo Ann Emerson, R-Mo., won a promise of the vote on the drug

" reimportation " bill from House Republican leaders when she agreed to cast the

deciding vote for the Medicare bill last month. Emerson and her allies said that

unless something is done to bring down the price of drugs, a new Medicare drug

benefit will break the federal bank.

" The prices of the same pills right across the border are a fraction of what

they are here at home, " Emerson said.

The bill would allow U.S. consumers and pharmacists to purchase drugs at usually

lower, international prices from Canada and some two-dozen other developed

nations with drug regulations deemed comparable to those in the U.S.

But opponents of the measure said that it opens the borders to drugs that could

be counterfeit, mislabeled, or outdated. " This legislation says, in essence,

safety does not matter, " said Rep. Pete Sessions, R-Texas.

The Bush administration said the Food and Drug Administration is already swamped

trying to inspect the flood of imported drugs Americans are currently purchasing

over the Internet illegally. The measure would " overwhelm FDA's already heavily

burdened regulatory system, " said the administration's official policy statement

on the bill.

Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich., who wrote the 1988 law that made " reimportation "

illegal in the first place, was in rare agreement with Bush officials. " You are

not making cheaper drugs available. You are putting our senior citizens at

risk, " he said.

Still, backers of the measure insisted that the safety concerns about

reimportation have been overblown. " It's clear the motivation isn't safety, "

said Jim McGovern, D-Mass. " The motivation is money. "

 

 

 

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