Norvell Emerson: “I want to thank the Speaker of the House for his graciousness in letting us bring this bill to the floor for debate…”

“I want to thank the Speaker of the House for his graciousness in letting us bring this bill to the floor for debate tonight. And speaking of the leadership in the House, I thought it would be important to all my colleagues for a little clarification. We hear talk about the FDA blasting the Gutknecht bill, saying that it is unsafe. I want my colleagues to know, and it is very important that they know, that in 2000 when we passed the reimportation language that is current statute, that language was written, that statute was written by our leadership, by a person who is now working at the White House, by me, and by the FDA. My colleagues might remember it passed in the Agriculture appropriations act. The FDA chose the 26 countries where it felt it was safe to import from those countries, because our current drug manufacturers, U.S. manufacturers, are today manufacturing drugs in those facilities that are approved and inspected by the FDA. It is very important that my colleagues know this. This is the underlying bill of Gutknecht. Plus, we have added extremely high-tech packaging, tamper-resistant, counterfeit-proof packaging. And this is in addition to the safety requirements, the chain of custody that the FDA has written in the underlying bill today.”