Richard Burr: “this is not about ``them or us.'' This is not a fight between Americans about what our policy is going to be. This is a…”

“this is not about ``them or us.'' This is not a fight between Americans about what our policy is going to be. This is a question of whether we are going to keep the promise to all Americans to protect the gold standard of the pharmaceutical inventory in this country. We currently through the FDA have compassionate use exceptions. We have the ability for individuals to cross the borders at Mexico, where there are 1,500 pharmacies in Tijuana, and we watch that very carefully. But we have also learned from that experience that we cannot determine the difference between real and fake. What this amendment does is it defunds the enforcement mechanism at the FDA. It says that by defunding section 801, we do not allow the FDA to do any of these things that we see on this chart. Let me go down a few of them. We prohibit drugs that contain filth. We defund the ability to stop drugs manufactured under unsanitary conditions. We defund our ability to stop drugs packaged in potentially unsafe containers. We defund our ability to enforce drugs made with unsafe filler additives. In a hearing of the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigation, we had Customs and DEA testify that they found drugs manufactured in Colombia; and visibly, one could not tell the difference between that and the real thing except one: it had no active ingredient. Therefore, it did nothing. The yellow color came from leaded yellow highway paint.”