On Drug Importation, Listen to John Dingell
It’s so ironic that it could almost pass for satire. Some in Congress want to use a food safety bill currently making its way through the legislative process as a vehicle to press for prescription drug importation. Using a measure to protect the safety of what we eat as a means to make ourselves more vulnerable to dangerous counterfeit medications? To say the least, it defies logic.
Congressman John Dingell (D-MI) doesn’t find it the least bit amusing. He’s the sponsor of the House food safety bill and, according to an article in The Hill newspaper, he is extremely concerned that a drug importation amendment being pushed by some of his counterparts in the Senate could derail the whole measure.
Not only that, but Congressman Dingell believes, correctly, that drug importation is simply a bad idea.
“It will allow this country to be flooded with unsafe, counterfeit drugs, drugs that will not do what they should, drugs that are unsafe, drugs that will kill the American people,” he said, during a 2003 debate on the issue, according to The Hill article.
Senator Byron Dorgan (D-ND), one of the most ardent proponents of importation, argues that the food safety bill may present the last opportunity in this Congress to enact wholesale drug importation into law.
The real question, though, is why do it at all?
Importation proponents argue that it will bring Americans cheaper drugs. And yet, the nation’s wholesale distribution companies have testified before Congress that the storage, relabeling, transportation, inspection and liability protection costs involved in bringing prescription medicines into the country would wipe out any savings. So, with incidences of counterfeit drugs on the rise globally, we would be incurring greater risk without reaping any meaningful benefits.
Instead of clamoring to import other countries’ price controls into the U.S., wouldn’t it make more sense to make this an international trade issue and push price-controlling nations to pay their fair share for American pharmaceutical innovation?
Congress would do well to listen to John Dingell on this issue.
