Edolphus Towns: “this is a bad bill. If we vote for this legislation tonight, we are kissing safety regulations good-bye and saying to…”

“this is a bad bill. If we vote for this legislation tonight, we are kissing safety regulations good-bye and saying to patients, fend for yourselves in determining what drugs are safe. The FDA will have no oversight responsibility here. I will admit that I am not qualified to determine what drugs are safe. It takes expertise to distinguish between counterfeit medicines and the genuine article. We rely on our government's health and safety officials like the Food and Drug Administration to keep unsafe drugs out of American medicine cabinets. It is a mystery to me why anyone would vote for a bill that would prevent our health officials from doing their job. That just blows my mind. And it is a giant step in the wrong direction. I ask all of my colleagues here tonight to vote against this bill because safety is a nonpartisan issue. The life you save might be your own.”