ANOTHER VOICE IN THE PRESCRIPTION DRUG DEBATE
(House of Representatives - June 10, 2003)
[Page: H5158]
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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 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.
