Political Quotes

“while Congress is working to provide affordable pharmaceuticals to American citizens through reimportation legislation, the Bush administration is working to undermine those efforts. We will soon vote on the United States-Australia Free Trade Agreement. Article 17.9.4 of the U.S.-Australia Free Trade Agreement would allow pharmaceutical companies to prevent imports of drugs to the United States. That means the Australian Free Trade Agreement is directly inconsistent with provisions in the bipartisan drug reimportation bill sponsored by Senators Dorgan, McCain, Snowe, Lott and Daschle. Under its comprehensive pharmaceutical benefits scheme, the Australian government negotiates today lower prices for its citizens through mass procurement. In other words, they use volume purchasing. The U.S. pharmaceutical industry has made sure that our government cannot use mass procurement to bring down drug prices for U.S. citizens, and that is not good enough. Now they want to go a step further. The U.S. Trade Representative's office, the President's person at the trade table, has included language in the Australian Trade Agreement that will forbid importation of cheap, affordable and safe Australian pharmaceuticals into our country.”