Gilbert Gutknecht: “Absolutely. The counterfeit drugs that some of these people are talking, or adulterated drugs, first of all, I want to…”

“Absolutely. The counterfeit drugs that some of these people are talking, or adulterated drugs, first of all, I want to make it clear, my amendment does not make them legal. We are only talking about drugs that are otherwise legal in the United States, where people have a legitimate prescription from a doctor. Principally what we are talking about, where this really happens, is when people travel. For example, let me give you a story from one of the ladies at one of my town hall meetings. She has a skin condition, I think called eczema or psoriasis, but, anyway, she has a skin condition, and to deal with that and manage it, her doctor in Rochester, Minnesota, has prescribed a particular ointment only available with a prescription, and in Minnesota it sells for about $130 for one tube. She was traveling in Ireland a couple of years ago and began to run out of this cream. She went to a pharmacy in Ireland, she had her prescription with her, she went into the local pharmacy, took her prescription, they had exactly the same drug, in exactly the same tube, made by exactly the same company, and it was $30. Now, when she got back to the United States, she said to herself, because she needs about a tube of this ointment every month, so $130 times 12 versus $30 times 12 is a saving of $1,200 per year to this one individual.”