Sherrod Brown: “Senator Dorgan is offering an important compromise. He is saying we should at least preserve the drug safety provisions…”

“Senator Dorgan is offering an important compromise. He is saying we should at least preserve the drug safety provisions in his reimportation amendment. These provisions are the result of significant discussion with public safety experts, and I believe the Senate should support the Dorgan amendment. Whether we agree on the issue of reimportation--and there is clearly a split in this body--we do agree on the importance of safety in our domestic supply. There have clearly been attempts to counterfeit inside the domestic supply. The Dorgan amendment brings us to a place that can help us answer those questions. I think the opponents to reimportation are wrong, but I understand they raise issues of drug safety. Those same issues of counterfeiting are present in our domestic supply, as Senator Dorgan said, under the law, under the situation we are in today. It sort of begs the larger question of drug safety overall. One of the worst ways we compromise drug safety is by limiting access to affordable prescription drugs. That limitation of access is because of the high cost of prescription drugs. Too many of us know of situations where people have said to me, in Zanesville and Lima and Toledo and Cleveland: I had to cut a prescription in half so they last twice as long or I took the pills every other day.”