RxrRights.org Applauds Drug Reimportation Amendment Sponsored by McCain and Franken
In their blog yesterday, our friends at RxRights.org, an advocacy group dedicated to helping Americans afford needed prescription medication, applauded Senator McCain’s (R-AZ) amendment to the Food and Drug Administration Safety and Innovation Act to greater facilitate safe and legal personal drug importation of prescription medications from verified Canadian pharmacies. Despite Senator McCain’s emphasis on verification and product authenticity, and co-sponsor Al Franken’s (D-MN) statement on this bill’s role in reducing overall healthcare spending, the amendment failed in a 12-9 vote in the Senate Committee on Health, Education, and Labor and Pensions.
Those against the bill cited drug product safety issues and concerns over the anonymity of the internet. Most vociferously, Senator Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) claimed that even with the bill consumers would still not know where there drugs were coming from, failing to recognize or understand that the solution to this problem is written in the amendment, which calls for a verification process that would identify safe online pharmacies. Just such a program was adopted by Kathleen Sebelius, now Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, when she was Governor of Kansas.
For more on this vote, please visit RxRights.org.
Click here for a video of the committee hearing. Coverage of the amendment begins at 28:40.
