By Tom Easter
September 27, 2004

Questions loom as to whether there will be a vote on bills before Congress that would allow the reimportation of prescription drugs into the United States. A bipartisan group of six senators in a letter called on Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (TN) to schedule a vote during the current session of Congress on their bill, S. 2328, which would allow the importation of lower-cost prescription drugs from Canada.

Frist, who introduced his own importation bill (S. 2493), has stated that he doubts this issue will make it on the already tight congressional agenda this session. The raising costs of healthcare specifically the ever-growing costs of prescription drugs continue to receive intense media and political coverage as the nation moves towards the November election.

A recent survey conducted by the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Harvard School of Public Health found that an overwhelming majority (79 percent) of seniors surveyed supported buying drugs from Canada and far fewer (32 percent) than critics suggests believe that imported drugs do pose a safety threat.

The bipartisan bill S. 2328, sponsored by Senator Byron Dorgan (ND) and cosponsored by a group of 31 other senators is the most comprehensive of the bills. It would allow immediate importation of prescription drugs by individuals from Canada and from four other industrialized nations and the current members of the European Union shortly thereafter. The bill would prohibit drug manufacturers from reducing the supply of drugs available for import to the U.S. or from making minor formulary changes to the drug in order to affect its FDA approved status.

Senators Judd Gregg (NH) and Frist introduced S. 2493, which would allow importation from Canada one-year after its adoption and other counties after 3 years. The bill does not prevent drug manufacturers from taking steps to limit or prevent the import of prescription drugs to the U.S. It requires the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services to make a decree that the importation of prescription drugs is safe, which is something that Secretary Thompson says his department will not do.

The Conference of Mayors adopted a resolution entitled "Importation of Prescription Drugs from Canada" at its 72nd Annual Meeting in Boston, June 2004. The policy calls upon the federal government to enact legislation that would allow U.S. citizens legal access to safe, affordable prescription medications from Canada, and to take other fundamental steps to bring about the reasonable pricing of prescription drugs in the U.S.

To view this resolution or other policies of the Conference of Mayors, go to usmayors.org.