Bush Administration continues role as lapdog
for
pharmaceutical industry, 'task
force' takes industry line, says costs of reimportation exceed
benefits
Dec. 21, 2004,
Washington, DC -- Importing drugs from Canada and other nations
where prices are lower wouldn't generate enough savings for U.S.
consumers to justify the risks, regulatory costs or harm to the drug
industry, a federal task force found.
Legalized
drug importation would be ``extraordinarily difficult and costly,''
would undermine research spending by drugmakers and would raise
liability issues for consumers and manufacturers, said a report
issued today by the task force, led by Surgeon General Richard
Carmona.
The report
sides with drugmakers including Pfizer Inc., the world's biggest,
which have cited safety risks in opposing importation. Spending to
import prescription drugs reached $1.4 billion last year, half from
Canada and half from other countries where governments hold prices
lower than in the U.S., the report found. At least half of U.S.
states are considering such purchases to cut costs, helping to make
legalization an issue in this year's presidential campaign.
``There is
no realistic level of resources that could ensure that personally
imported drugs are adequately inspected to assure their safety,
since visual inspection, testing and oversight of all personally
imported prescription drugs are not feasible or practical at this
time,'' the report said.
Illinois
Republican Representative Ray LaHood in said there is
``overwhelming'' support for legalized drug importation in the U.S.
House. The government hasn't prosecuted individual Americans for
buying drugs abroad for their own use.
Support in Congress
``They are
cheaper,'' LaHood said in an interview today. ``It's an issue that
we're going to have to deal with.'' In the next session of Congress,
he predicted, drug importation ``will be a big issue.''
The report
said examining the estimated 10 million packages of prescription
products imported by Americans last year would have cost $3 billion,
based on data from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Regulating
bulk imports of drugs would cost several hundred million dollars a
year, officials said on a conference call.
The costs
of inspection along with pressure from Canadian health officials may
spell the end of importation from Canada, said David Mackay,
executive director of the Canadian International Pharmacy
Association, an industry group based in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Canadian
Health Minister Ujjal Dosanjh told provincial health officials to
enforce regulations prohibiting doctors from endorsing prescriptions
for other physicians' patients, which would slow the flow of drugs
to the U.S.
Canadian Pharmacies
``At this
point, legalized importation may not be something Canada can
consider,'' Mackay said.
Senators
Byron Dorgan, a North Dakota Democrat, and Olympia Snowe, a Maine
Republican, have been sponsoring a bill that would allow Americans
to buy drugs from Canadian and European pharmacies after inspection
by the FDA. Dorgan said he would continue to press for passage of
the measure, supported by Democrats and Republicans making up a
third of the Senate.
``I never
had much confidence that this study was going to be objective or its
conclusions accurate,'' Dorgan said in a statement.
Americans
may save 1 percent to 2 percent of total drug spending by importing
medications, the task force found. Most of that would go to health
insurers. Greater use of generic medications may have cut the U.S.
drug bill in 2003 by $17 billion, or 7.9 percent of the $216 billion
in total spending, the report said.
Drug
Safety
Importing
drugs may be unwise at a time when there are already concerns about
the safety of the U.S. drug supply, said Senator Mike Enzi, a
Wyoming Republican who will be chairman of the Senate Health,
Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. Studies reported since
September suggested that painkillers including Pfizer's Celebrex,
Bayer AG's Aleve and Merck & Co.'s withdrawn Vioxx may elevate the
risks of heart disease.
``Most of
any savings would either end up paying for legions of new FDA
inspectors at our borders or end up in the pockets of middlemen,''
Enzi said in a written statement. ``The last thing we want to do is
open up the possibility of further problems with our domestic drug
supply.''
Consumers
in other nations where brand-name prescriptions cost less typically
pay 50 percent more for generic medications than Americans,
according to the task force's report. U.S. customers also benefit
from getting new drugs first, the report said. About 40 percent of
new medicines in recent years were launched in the U.S. before they
were sold overseas, according to the report.
Medicare Law
The task
force was to report to U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary
Tommy Thompson Dec. 8, a year after President George W. Bush's
signed a law expanding prescription-drug coverage for seniors under
the federal government's Medicare program. The measure also called
for the study to tell lawmakers how they could make drug importation
safe.
The report
promises to continue ``the gift of trade protectionism that is worth
billions in profits,'' said Ron Pollack, executive director of
Families USA, a Washington-based health advocacy group. ``It offers
no new, creative ways to establish a cost-effective system for safe
drug importation or encourage true and meaningful research on
breakthrough drugs.''
Thompson
appointed the task force to identify limitations on funding and
manpower that crimp his ability to guarantee that imported medicines
aren't fake and haven't been tampered with. The panel included
officials from the White House and the Departments of Health and
Human Services, Homeland Security and Justice.