[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 149 (2003), Part 10]
[House]
[Pages 14111-14112]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




        LOWERING THE COST OF PHARMACEUTICAL DRUGS FOR AMERICANS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Burton) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. BURTON of Indiana. Mr. Speaker, I would like the gentleman from 
Minnesota (Mr. Gutknecht) to join me in this small 5-minute Special 
Order. He just read part of an article in The Washington Post about 
pharmaceutical products that are manufactured in part with taxpayers 
money, where the pharmaceutical industry is making billions and 
billions of dollars while the taxpayer is getting virtually nothing 
back in return. The American people are paying exorbitant prices for 
these pharmaceutical products as compared to the rest of the world.
  When these products are imported by Americans when they go up to 
Canada and buy these products, either through the Internet or go to 
Canada, when they bring them home to use them because they cost one-
tenth, one-fifth, or one-half of what they would cost in the United 
States, the Food and Drug Administration, our regulatory body, says 
there is a question of safety; and they actually try to block or stop 
the reimportation of these pharmaceutical products, where the research 
is paid for in large part by the taxpayers of this country.
  So I would like to ask the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Gutknecht), 
maybe he can enlighten me on this subject. Why is it that the Food and 
Drug Administration is not investigating why the pharmaceutical 
industry is manufacturing these products with taxpayers' money, or 
conducting the research with taxpayers' money, making these exorbitant 
profits, and the money that is given back to the taxpayer in royalties 
in this country is very nominal, almost nothing, compared to the $9 
billion the gentleman cited? Why is it the FDA is not investigating 
this, instead of stopping the American people from getting these 
pharmaceutical products at a reasonable price?
  Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman would yield, I cannot 
answer that question; but I think it is the question that we in 
Congress should try to get the answer to.
  Why is it that the FDA is investigating little old ladies trying to 
save money on Tamoxifen? I spoke recently to the Pharmacists 
Association, and I asked them, how many of you have had this 
experience, where an elderly person comes into your pharmacy, hands you 
a prescription. You tell them how much this prescription is going to 
cost, and their head drops, and they go, oh, well, I will come back 
tomorrow. Because we know from research done by the Kaiser Foundation, 
29 percent of seniors in America are saying that they have 
prescriptions that go unfilled because they cannot afford them.

                              {time}  1930

  And the answer is, the FDA is not investigating companies that make 
$9 billion off of Federal taxpayer research; no, they are not 
investigating them, they are investigating little old ladies, treating 
them as common criminals.
  Mr. BURTON of Indiana. Yes. And the question that comes up is why 
they are not doing that. They are supposed to protect the American 
consumer and they are supposed to make sure the American consumer gets 
a fair deal, and it is simply not happening.
  I would like to just read from what the gentleman read, real quickly. 
Squid made $9 billion from Taxol, Bristol-Myers Squibb, and it has been 
used to treat 1 million cancer patients, but the National Institutes of 
Health got only $35 million back in royalties. Squibb made $9 million 
and they only gave $35 million back for the research

[[Page 14112]]

money that was paid for by the taxpayer. And then down at the bottom it 
says the GAO, the investigative arm of Congress, said NIH spent another 
$484 million in research on Taxol through 2002. So the taxpayers paid 
for all of this research, but Squibb is making all the money and the 
taxpayer is getting nothing for it, except a shot in the jaw when they 
try to buy this product from another country where they can get it 
cheaper. It makes no sense to me.
  Mr. GUTKNECHT. It makes no sense to me. It is really time for us as 
Members of Congress to do something about it.
  Mr. BURTON of Indiana. Mr. Speaker, I want to join the gentleman and 
some of our other colleagues, a growing number of our colleagues, in 
demanding that the GAO do an entire study of this to find out why the 
American people are being ripped off by the pharmaceutical companies 
when, in large part, the taxpayer is paying for that research. It makes 
no sense to me. And why is the FDA, why is the FDA protecting the 
pharmaceutical industry? It is something that should not be tolerated.
  Any other comments from my colleague?
  Mr. GUTKNECHT. Well, the FDA is also responsible for all of the 
fruits and vegetables coming into the country. The issue they raise is 
safety, yet we import 318,000 tons of plantains that come into our 
borders, through our borders every year, and we do almost no 
investigation. We are much more likely to get sick from fruits and 
vegetables than we are from legal prescription drugs from FDA-approved 
facilities around the world.
  Mr. BURTON of Indiana. In fact, we found zero on the importation from 
Canada, we found zero problems with the reimportation, and yet they say 
it is the safety they are concerned about. It does not make any sense.
  I thank the gentleman for all of his hard work.

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