Update on Drug Importation

Gracie Marie-Turner
The Galen Insitute

The Reuters newswire reports today that Sens. McCain and Obama "are reviewing their support" for drug importation "in light of tainted medicines and other goods made in other countries."

They and other political leaders have been on record as backing legislative initiatives that would allow Americans to import drugs from abroad to take advantage of the price controls other countries impose on pharmaceuticals.

We have written for years that this practice threatens patient health and the safety of our pharmaceutical supply chain, but leaders and editorialists have rejected the safety argument, until now.

"Recent scares involving chemical-laced batches of baby formula and the blood thinner heparin -- both made in China -- have raised new concerns that safely bringing in additional medical products from overseas could be tougher than expected," Reuters reports.

Advisors for both McCain and Obama spoke at a Generic Pharmaceutical Association's (GPhA) annual conference in Washington yesterday, indicating the candidates were rethinking their positions.

"Both candidates were in favor of reimportation and sort of subsequent to the heparin incident (there's) a lot less enthusiasm," said Dora Hughes, senior health policy adviser to Sen. Obama. "We have a better understanding of the challenges that go along to support the importation."

"We now realize the challenges for doing that are greater than before," Douglas Holtz-Eakin, senior policy adviser to Sen. McCain, told reporters at the conference.

Neither adviser said their candidate has abandoned drug importation but realized it would be more difficult, Reuters reports.

If any legislation were to emerge next year on this issue, at the very least it should require the Department of Homeland Security to certify the safety of importing vast quantities of drugs from other countries.

Hippocrates' dictate to physicians to "First, do no harm" also is appropriate for politicians intervening in health care.