I stated in my opening statement yesterday that I was concerned that H.R. 3545, the Overdose Prevention and Patient Safety Act could dangerously erect a barrier to patients seeking and remaining in treatment and therefore harm our efforts…

Today, we continue a series of hearings to address the complex opioid abuse crisis that is devastating lives across the country.

Without this funding commitment, many of the laws we have passed and the bills being discussed during this hearing are nothing more than empty words.

One of the major ways we can impact the prevalence of opioids available for abuse is to limit the importation of synthetic opioids that have infiltrated our international mailing facilities.

I wanted to ask Mr. Francer some questions. The committee has heard concerns from FDA regarding the public health concerns associated with illicit, unapproved, or counterfeit drugs entering our supply chain.

Well, many of us have talked about how there are millions of these packages that come in through international mail facilities every day, and the FDA only has the resources to inspect a small fraction; I think about 40,000.

And that is why I am pleased that Congress agreed in the budget agreement to provide a total of $6 billion in additional funding for efforts to respond to the epidemic for fiscal years 2018 and 2019.

I introduced the bill I mentioned, H.R. 5228, or the SCREEN Act, which would provide FDA with additional authority and resources to combat this problem.

the legislation authorized would help to improve on CDC's work

While we have worked together to pass CARA and the 21st Century Cures Act, more must be done.

I wanted to thank you for appearing before the committee again and for your forward thinking when it comes to the opioid crisis this country is facing.

Congress also has a responsibility to figure out what went wrong and how it went wrong and how to make sure something like this never happens again.