Recently, our senators Coons and Carper joined a group of 13 Democrats to vote against cheaper drugs for Americans. They have tried to justify their vote by saying it was about drug safety. But the measure they voted down actually called for setting up a deficit-neutral fund to import drugs from Canada - where drugs cost substantially less and there are drug safety controls in place. The measure didn't say allow uncontrolled online drug sales. It didn't call for bypassing FDA approval or inspection. It just said establish a funded way to import cheaper Canadian drugs for American consumers.
Over and over, we have seen such votes where our representatives in Congress claim they are protecting us from dangers they think are greater than not being able to pay for our drugs or medical care. What are these dangers, really? How safe are the drugs we pay such exorbitant prices for here in America? Are they actually different from the drugs sold in Canada or Denmark or Australia?
Drug production is a global business. No country produces all the drugs consumed by its citizens anymore. The majority of drugs we use here are not made here – over 80 percent of the active pharmaceutical ingredients used to make your heart medicine and other prescription drugs are made in factories and labs in China, India, Thailand.
Does the FDA have active, adequate oversight and inspection of these foreign operations and their production? No.
Is the FDA actually empowered to exercise meaningful sanctions against drug companies or producers who refuse to cooperate with its voluntary quality control requirements? No.
To say, as senators Carper and Coons and Booker have said, that they can't let us have cheaper drugs until the FDA "certifies" those drugs' safety is deliberate misdirection. The real obstacle to cheaper drugs is price. Other countries like Canada, England, Germany can keep the prices of drugs affordable while here in the U.S., consumers are pawns to price manipulation and profit-taking.
In the past, Sen. Carper has championed "competition" and "choice" - he was a supporter of the Medicare Part D drug legislation which created the infamous "donut hole" because it did not allow Medicare to negotiate drug prices directly on behalf of its beneficiaries. Yet now, when there was an opportunity to open up the U.S. market to competition and choice, he and Sen. Coons voted no.
The seeming inconsistency between these two positions is superficial however; in both cases, the interests of the drug suppliers and insurers were protected. And once again, the medical and economic interests of us, American consumers of healthcare, are denied.
Deb Schultz
Lewes
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