In the discussion thread: The Root: Pipe Down, Bernie Sanders [View all]
Response to JCanete (Reply #234)
Mon Jan 16, 2017, 03:27 PM
JHan (10,173 posts)
239. this:
https://cenlamar.com/2017/01/14/if-bernie-sanders-cares-about-cheaper-drugs-he-should-stop-smearing-his-colleagues-for-rejecting-his-flawed-amendment/
Well, for starters, Sanders couldn’t figure out if he wanted to create a fund to import drugs from Canada or the entire world. In its initial iteration, his amendment sought to establish a deficit-neutral reserve fund to allow for the importation of drugs from “Canada and other countries.” Amy Klobuchar subsequently cleaned up the language and eliminated “other countries” from its title. But, aside from the confusion about the scope of this proposed reserve fund, the primary reason it failed is that Sanders misapprehended the mechanisms necessary to establish an importation process that conforms with FDA guidelines. It’s not enough to say “these drugs must be safe;” there needs to be funding for quality control and compliance, which was never addressed. Sure, this was a non-binding budget amendment, and some will argue that things could have simply been cleaned up later on. But it was ostensibly designed to be a funding mechanism, and instead, it read like a milquetoast resolution. There were a number of other amendments introduced that very day that included provisions for the Food and Drug Administration; Sanders’s didn’t, and it needed to. In making the case for this legislation, Sanders spoke almost exclusively about the re-importation of patented American pharmaceuticals, and to be fair, that is an enormous part of the equation; it’s also what most American consumers demand. However, it doesn’t capture the entirety of the market. In some cases, American consumers may turn to Canadian compounding pharmacies for cheaper specialized medications; in others, Americans may want to purchase generic medications that are no longer patented and can be manufactured independently at a lower cost. And that’s why we need FDA oversight and compliance. And it's not just this disability activist who's raised concerns...We already buy imported drugs from Canada. Even border officials exercise "discretion" when allowing imported medicines, with shipments amounting to less than three months' supply allowed. These drugs are not subjected to FDA standards but Canadian standards - some have argued this is a dodge but it isn't. Fake drugs are a problem ( google Amir Attaran, a human-rights lawyer and American-Canadian health policy researcher and read his articles about this) If we aren't clear about import restrictions and guidelines, peddlers of fake drugs - who utilize online pharmacies - can put us more at risk. Is it too much to ask for an amendment to be more fleshed out considering all these factors? This isn't a black and white issue, and I wish - instead of so many on the left excoriating the Democrats who voted the way they did- they'd take the time to look at why our system is so broken, what lessons we can learn from Canada, what our own FDA can do to make more affordable drugs available and what needs to change in the system to prevent pharma monopolies price gouging consumers. |
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