[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 84 (Tuesday, June 10, 2003)]
[House]
[Pages H5158-H5159]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




             ANOTHER VOICE IN THE PRESCRIPTION DRUG DEBATE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Texas (Mr. Burgess) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. BURGESS. Mr. Speaker, I rise tonight to talk to my colleagues 
about the prescription drug reimportation debate that has been the 
subject of so much discussion in this House. I would urge my colleagues 
to use caution and reason when approaching this issue. Several 
complicated and interconnected issues dominate this situation: trade 
relations, patient safety, drug costs and government regulation, just 
to name a few. Some in this House believe that if Americans had the 
ability to purchase their drugs from Canada or Mexico or Europe or Mars 
that the United States market would adjust to reflect the importation 
of cheaper medicines. Let us be clear: foreign countries place price 
controls on their prescription drugs. This means that the drugs 
purchased by Canadian citizens may be priced lower than that which an 
American citizen will pay for the same compound because of that 
government's artificial market intervention. If an American citizen 
purchases a drug from a Canadian pharmacy, it may be cheaper. But by 
permitting the reimportation of drugs into this country, we effectively 
allow the importation of foreign price controls in the United States 
market as well. This would be shortsighted and run counter to the free 
market system that is established in this country. If drug 
reimportation becomes the established policy in this country, the 
United States would in essence be allowing foreign governments to set 
the prices for American businesses.
  If we truly believe in the power of the free market, we should remove 
the market distortion of foreign price controls, a market distortion 
which ensures that America's seniors and America's uninsured pay the 
highest prices for their medications. And what happens in countries 
that have adopted price controls? Pharmaceutical companies and biotech 
companies have left in droves. According to a report by the Directorate 
General Enterprise of the European Commission, European drug 
multinationals have increasingly relied on sources of research 
capabilities and innovation located in this country. Because of the 
stranglehold of regulation in European countries, including price 
controls on pharmaceuticals, Europe is lagging behind in its ability to 
generate, organize, and sustain innovation processes that are 
increasingly expensive and organizationally complex. The United States 
biotech industry in the last decade has had a meteoric rise; but we 
would place a chill on the industry's development, the number of jobs 
it creates and the revenue it produces if we allowed foreign drug 
prices to stymie its growth.
  More importantly, if we inject foreign drug price controls into the 
United States, you will see less innovation in this very promising new 
field of science. Most importantly, underlying all of the complex 
economic and trade issues is one that ultimately impacts us all, and 
that is patient safety. The Food and Drug Administration exists to 
protect American consumers from

[[Page H5159]]

dangerous substances that may be in the food we eat for nourishment or 
the pharmaceuticals that we take to cure our ills. Only our FDA in this 
country can assure the safety of drugs for American citizens. I think 
this House would be shirking its duty if we created a system that 
relied upon the actions of regulatory officials in Canada, Thailand, 
Belize or Barbados to ensure the safety of American patients. Allowing 
drug reimportation from foreign countries would only be a signal to 
foreign drug counterfeiters that it is open season on the health and 
safety of Americans citizens. Make no mistake, Mr. Speaker, these 
foreign counterfeiters are very clever; and with all due respect to my 
colleague who held up the package this evening, packaging in and of 
itself does not guarantee that that has not been tampered with and that 
that is not a counterfeit item. I could relate to you stories from my 
own medical practice from a few years ago where patients had what might 
be politely described as therapeutic misadventures by the ingestion of 
drugs which were imported, illegally, from Mexico.
  The House can approach the drug cost issue through far less 
shortsighted solutions than permitting drug importation from foreign 
countries. Make no mistake, Mr. Speaker, the pharmaceutical companies 
in this country also have an obligation to control the cost and be 
certain that their profits are reasonable. Without this, we will 
continue to hear the arguments for reimportation nightly on the House 
floor. The purchasing power of the Federal Government should bring down 
the cost of safe pharmaceuticals in this country.
  Mr. Speaker, we should remember the admonition of a long-ago 
physician, to first do no harm. In this House, we would do wise to heed 
that advice.

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