Administration: Obama to Push for Allowing Drug Re-Importation

[babylonsister]

http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2009/12/20/administration-obama-to-push-for-allowing-drug-re-importation/

Administration: Obama to Push for Allowing Drug Re-Importation

By Kara Scannell


White House aide David Axelrod said President Barack Obama was “committed” to allowing the re-importation of pharmaceutical drugs into the U.S. and would push ahead with efforts to open the market.

During debate on the health-care bill, some senators had unsuccessfully sought to attach language that would allow the re-importation of drugs into the U.S. from Canada and other countries. Obama had endorsed re-importation during the presidential campaign.

“Let me be clear: The president supports re-importation, as he said, safe re-importation of drugs into this country,” Axelrod told CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday. “There’s no reason why Americans should pay a premium for the pharmaceuticals that other people in other countries pay less for.”

The pharmaceutical industry opposes re-importation, and the Food and Drug Administration has for years raised questions about the safety of re-importing pharmaceutical drugs into the U.S. Axelrod said the Obama administration would seek to allay such concerns.

Obama “put money in the budget” to improve the “safety and security procedures at the FDA so we can move forward on re-importation, and we will move forward on it,” Axelrod said.

Re-imported drugs are prescription pharmaceuticals approved by the FDA, produced in the U.S. and exported, then brought back into the country.