Dems Patty Murray and Michael Bennet help GOP kill a Sanders-Warren bill to lower drug prices

[pnwmom]

12. Once again Matt Taibbi has written a misleading article about Democrats.

He seems to have a habit of doing that.

For example, he says:

"But we already do import foreign drugs, and have an established safety certification process. In fact, an astonishing 40 percent of all pharmaceuticals sold in the United States are already imported, as are 80 percent of the chemical ingredients. These imported drugs and drug ingredients arrive by way of more than 300,000 foreign food and drug manufacturing facilities that are regularly certified as safe by the FDA."

The truth is that US pharmaceutical companies do produce drugs under contract with foreign manufacturers, and those drugs get imported into the US. But that' isn't what the Bernie amendment was about. It was about allowing consumers to directly order drugs from online pharmacies in Canada. And Canada does NOTHING to regulate the drugs that pass through Canada on the way to the US (or only pretend to pass through Canada to other countries. Some online pharmacies only purport to be in Canada.) Canada regulates the drugs being sold to its own citizens, but not the drugs or fake drugs that are advertised on online websites purporting to be based in Canada.

Senator Patty Murray comes from a state that has already had a problem of fake drugs being imported from online pharmacies. Bernie's amendment would have made that worse.

Also, Taibbi fails to mention that Patty Murray DID support another healthcare bill that included the protections for consumers that Bernie's bill lacked. So did Cory Booker and the 11 other Democrats who didn't support Bernie's bill.

Here is an article about fake drugs being made in India. The problem is that an online pharmacy with an address in Canada can order these counterfeits from India and then ship them to consumers in the US. Canada does NOT regulate the safety of drugs that are passing through Canada on the way to other countries, including the US.

http://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/fake-medicine-industry-booms-in-india/