Tom Coburn: “I want to chime in for a minute on this amendment, and I want to set a little background. Why do we want to import…”

“I want to chime in for a minute on this amendment, and I want to set a little background. Why do we want to import prescription drugs? What is the reason behind it? The reason is that there is not a true international market in pharmaceuticals. Senator Stabenow quoted a figure of $29 billion worth of Government research. That is not quite accurate. There is $29 billion that goes to NIH, but that is not all related to drug development. Probably half of that is. So we do have a great investment in drugs. There is no question that the American consumer subsidizes the pharmaceuticals of almost every other nation in this world. So the purpose behind this amendment is a good one. I would draw attention to the fact that Senator Brown and I passed a drug reimportation bill in the late 1990s that became law, and President Clinton signed it. Donna Shalala, however, under the same guidelines, refused to carry out that mandate--that bill is still on the books, by the way--claiming there was nothing they could do that would make them safe and that they could assure they were safe. I am going to vote for this amendment, and I think it is right that we should develop a worldwide market on pharmaceuticals, but I am not sure we are going to accomplish this. Having authored the first bill on drug reimportation when I was a Member in the House, what I have seen is that the problem is much bigger than what we are attacking.”