House Votes on Drug Imports

The House pulled back somewhat from its position last year that US-made prescription drugs exported to other countries should be allowed back in at their lower, overseas prices.

By a vote of 267-159, members rejected an amendment to the annual spending bill for the Department of Agriculture and the Food and Drug Administration offered by Rep. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), that would have allowed firms to “reimport” exported drugs from other countries. Last year, the House approved Sanders’ amendment by a vote of 363-12.

But members at the same time approved, 324-101, a similar amendment offered by Gil Gutknecht (R-MN) that would allow individuals, but not companies, to bring back drugs from other countries for their own personal use.

Backers of the proposals said they would benefit consumers. “It will save substantial sums of money for millions of Americans,” Sanders said.

Said Dan Miller (R-FL), “Americans are free to bring pork chops and other products across the border. Why can’t they do the same with FDA-approved drugs?”

But unlike last year, when Congress was anxious to address the politically potent prescription drug cost issue any way it could, this year many members rose to warn of the potential dangers posed by reimported drugs.

Among the most vehement were members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which held a hearing earlier this spring where FDA and Customs officials said they are already inundated by illegal shipments of legal drugs and cannot guarantee their safety even without a change in the law.

“We’ve seen films from overseas of counterfeit drugs–we know drugs are tampered with overseas,” said Ed Bryant (R-TN), a member of that committee.

On Tuesday, Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson wrote authors of last year’s version of the law that he agreed with his predecessor, Donna Shalala, who said in December that she could not enforce the law because she could not certify, as required, that allowing reimportation would both lower prices for consumers and protect the safety of the drug supply.

Among those speaking against the Gutknecht amendment was Rep. Henry Waxman (R-CA), who helped write the law in 1988 that made reimportation illegal. He said the amendment “is so vaguely drafted it can be interpreted as either ineffective or dangerous, but under no reading is it worth doing.”