Byron Dorgan: “the Cochran amendment requires a certification by the Secretary of Health and Human Services which we know from previous…”

“the Cochran amendment requires a certification by the Secretary of Health and Human Services which we know from previous experience now cannot or will not be made by the Secretary of Health and Human Services. Therefore, I was going to ask the Senator from Wyoming a couple of questions, if at some point he might come back so I can engage him in a colloquy. The point of the Cochran amendment is that it will now nullify the entire amendment that was offered by myself, Senator Snowe, and 33 other Senators who had cosponsored the amendment. I wanted to point out that in the amendment, it not only allowed for reimportation of prescription drugs--FDA-approved prescription drugs from other countries whose chain of custody was identical or virtually identical to ours so that the American people would have access to lower priced, FDA-approved prescription drugs--but we also included in that amendment, which would now be nullified because the Secretary of HHS will not be able to certify, counterfeit-resistant technologies. Now, I believe those counterfeit-resistant technologies are as applicable to our existing drug supply domestically as they are to any potential imports that would be brought into this country.”