"Patient safety must remain the over-riding concern in any discussion on drug
reimportation, and patients must be protected from unapproved drugs that could be unsafe, expired, counterfeit, adulterated, misbranded, or in-appropriately labeled," Dr.
Drug
reimportation and other proposals to restrict prices of medications would erode the foundations of new drug development.
Many opponents of
reimportation therefore also raise quality issues, which are substantial.
That leads to suggestions of some form of free-market approach as an alternative to
reimportation.
HIV drugs are often prime targets of theft and of illegal
reimportation.
DeFazio advocates allowing the
reimportation of FDA-approved, U.S.-manufactured drugs from Canada and giving the government the authority to negotiate lower prices with pharmaceutical companies as it does with medications purchased by the U.S.
Both the House and Senate have passed legislation that would allow
reimportation of prescrip tion drugs, which can cost more than twice as much in the United States as they do elsewhere.
Although most drug
reimportation has been illegal, the government had been conducting minimal interference to personal orders coming in the mail from across the Canadian border until mid-November 2005, when the administration changed its policy.
Widespread drug importation is occurring already - and much of it is the
reimportation of drugs made by U.S.
SAN FRANCISCO --
Reimportation of foreign drugs is both illegal and ineffective, says a new Pacific Research Institute primer on health care reform.
He said that bringing down the sky-high prices of prescription medications can be achieved without spending taxpayers' dollars by allowing the
reimportation of U.S.
"Price controls, drug
reimportation, intellectual property protection, 'fourth hurdle' requirements--all of these trends are in fact part of a single overarching question: How do we pay for the cost of developing new drugs?