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chicagotribune.com <http://www.chicagotribune.com/> >> Editorials 
<http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion>
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Shielding the drug industry

Published October 1, 2004

Last month Peter Rost, a vice president of marketing for Pfizer Inc., 
broke ranks with the drug industry and his employer by publicly 
endorsing a proposal in Maryland's Montgomery County to allow its 
employees to buy cheaper drugs from Canada. Rost disputed industry 
claims that reimportation would pose a public health risk. "The real 
concern about safety is about people who do not take drugs because they 
cannot afford it," he said.

Rost--who made it clear that he was speaking only for himself, not 
Pfizer--joins a growing number of city and state officials across the 
country arguing for reimportation. Only a few months ago, a new law 
seemed inevitable. Even Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy 
Thompson suggested that was so. Unfortunately, "inevitable" may not mean 
any time soon.

Competing reimportation bills have been bottled up in the Senate for 
months. And Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist of Tennessee isn't likely 
to allow a debate or vote before the election. Last month he argued that 
with only a few weeks left in the session and other pressing issues, 
there wasn't enough time for a full debate.

While Congress dithers, states and cities skirt if not break the law by 
helping seniors and others take advantage of lower prescription-drug 
prices in Canada. One such program is supposed to be introduced soon in 
Illinois.

The lack of progress is frustrating. Last spring, at his confirmation 
hearings, Medicare chief Mark McClellan promised to help develop 
legislation to allow imports of lower-cost prescription drugs with 
safeguards to protect consumers. Frist said that the Senate "will begin 
a process for developing proposals that would allow for the safe 
reimportation of FDA-approved prescription drugs." But Sen. Byron Dorgan 
(D-N.D.) said recently that the process had "led to nothing."

No wonder some politicians are so frustrated that they're openly 
challenging the Food and Drug Administration in announcing plans to help 
consumers link to pharmacies in Canada and elsewhere.

Opponents of reimportation have argued that it would open America's 
borders to a flood of tainted drugs, and that the FDA could not 
guarantee the safety or purity of such imported drugs. That argument 
isn't convincing. Many drugs are manufactured abroad, and the FDA 
inspects those factories and ensures that drugs are shipped to America 
without tampering. That system could be expanded, using fees paid by 
those who import or export the drugs.

Pfizer execs are asserting that Rost "has no qualifications to speak on 
importation" and emphasize that he is not speaking for the company. But 
his support for reimportation resonates in Illinois, where 67 percent of 
registered voters support Gov. Rod Blagojevich's plan to help residents 
buy prescription drugs from Canada, Ireland and England, according to a 
recent Tribune/WGN-TV poll. A survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation 
showed about 8 in 10 Medicare recipients support allowing Americans to 
buy drugs from Canada if they can get a lower price. The same study 
showed more than 6 in 10 don't believe such a system would expose 
Americans to unsafe medicines from other countries.

It seems terribly clear that congressional leaders have one intention 
here: protecting their heavy campaign contributors in the drug industry 
from competition. This issue deserves a vote. The stalling has to stop.