Byron Dorgan: “About a week ago, the Secretary of Health and Human Services decided that legislation which I and several of my…”

“About a week ago, the Secretary of Health and Human Services decided that legislation which I and several of my colleagues drafted and was passed last year and became law would not be administered. It is a law dealing with the reimportation of prescription drugs into this country. The provision allows distributors and pharmacists to go to another country such as Canada, to access the same prescription drugs made in an FDA-approved plant and bring them to this country because it is much less expensive in Canada, and pass those savings along to consumers. That is what our legislation did. The Secretary of Health and Human Services under the previous administration and now under this administration said they could not certify, A, that it would be lowering costs for prescription drugs and, B, that it would be safe; therefore, they would not certify to that and would not implement the law. We are terribly disappointed by that. We think it was a mistake in the past administration to have made that decision, and we think last week it was a mistake for the Department of Health and Human Services to make that decision.”