March 7, 2007
Dorgan.senate.newsroom
(WASHINGTON, D.C.) --- U.S. Senator Byron Dorgan (D-ND) continued to push Wednesday to allow Americans to purchase lower-priced prescription drugs from Canada and other Western industrialized nations.
He chaired a hearing Wednesday by the Senate Commerce Subcommittee on Trade on the issue, where he squared off with a top representative of the nation's big drug manufacturers, Billy Tauzin, CEO of PhRMA. The U.S. drug companies currently keep prices high for American consumers through their monopoly power to set the price of drugs.
At the hearing, Dorgan noted that the same drugs, manufactured in the same factory routinely sell for nearly two times as much in the U.S. as they do in other countries.
Dorgan introduced with Senator Olympia Snowe (R-ME) legislation earlier this year to allow U.S. consumers to purchase more affordable, FDA-approved prescription drugs from Canada and other Western industrialized countries. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that this legislation would save consumers and the government $50 billion over ten years, with $6.1 billion of that in savings to the federal government.
"I think we need to introduce a little price competition into the marketplace," said Dorgan. "There is no reason American consumers ought to be paying the highest prices in the world for prescription medicines. It is not my intention to have Americans buy their drugs from Canada, but there's no doubt that allowing access to those lower-priced medicines will exert downward pressure on U.S. prices."
Tauzin defended drug-company pricing, claiming that Medicare Part D helps people who otherwise could not afford prescription drugs. "He failed to acknowledge more than 46 million uninsured Americans and other American consumers who cannot afford to pay the highest prescription drug prices in the world," said Dorgan.
FDA Acting Deputy Commissioner for Policy Dr. Randall Lutter raised concerns that allowing imported drugs into the U.S. could raise safety concerns with the threat of counterfeit drugs.
Dorgan disagreed sharply. "Our bill makes purchasing medicines from other countries safer," Dorgan said, "by establishing safeguards that don't exist today."
"Such arguments make clear," he said, "that opponents hadn't even read the legislation, much less thought very much about it."
Dorgan's legislation, the Pharmaceutical Market Access and Drug Safety Act, would allow pharmacists and other licensed wholesalers to safely import federally approved prescription drugs for resale in the U.S. Currently, only pharmaceutical companies are allowed to import prescription drugs for resale. The legislation would also allow individuals to import prescription drugs from federally approved and inspected pharmacies in Canada. The FDA would ensure the highest standards for such essential functions as recording medical history, verifying prescriptions and tracking shipments.
Source: http://dorgan.senate.gov/newsroom/record.cfm?id=270292
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