[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 147 (2001), Part 9]
[House]
[Page 12963]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



   GUTKNECHT AMENDMENT ALLOWS ACCESS TO REASONABLY-PRICED DRUGS FOR 
                                SENIORS

  (Mr. GUTKNECHT asked and was given permission to address the House 
for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Speaker, later today we are going to have a very 
heated debate about a simple amendment that I am going to offer to make 
it clear what the Congress intended last year in terms of prescription 
drugs and allowing seniors and other Americans access to drugs from 
other places.
  Much of the debate is going to revolve around this chart and the 
issue of safety. I just want to talk about a couple of these items 
here. For Glucophage, a commonly-prescribed drug for diabetes, in the 
United States the average price is $30.12 for a 30-day supply. That 
same drug made in the same plant sells in Europe for $4.11.
  Mr. Speaker, a lot of people are going to say, what about safety? 
What about safety? Well, there is not a single piece of evidence, not 
one piece of evidence, that anyone has been injured by bringing legal 
drugs back into the United States where they have a prescription. That 
is a fact.
  It is also a fact that 4.4 percent of the fruit and produce that 
comes into this country every day is tainted with serious pathogens.
  Mr. Speaker, we are going to have a chance to vote on this amendment. 
We are going to have to decide whether we are going to defend and 
explain this chart, and say that Americans should not have the access 
to legal drugs from legal countries around the world.

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