Importing Drugs
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“Opening up the American market to drug imports will force drug companies to reconsider their pricing structure,” is a statement made by Rep. Gil Gutknecht of Minnesota (2004). According to Gutknecht, Americans will save billions of dollars if drugs are imported from Canada and other countries into the United States. I agree with Gutknecht because once the United States opens its doors to importation of drugs for a substantially lower price, it will force these drug companies to reconsider their pricing and will narrow the gap of drug prices here in the United States, compared to foreign countries. I believe if the states and senators like Gutknecht will keep pushing forward with this plan it cannot be denied.
First of all, if importing drugs would save Americans billions of dollars, why is the government hesitant to allow it? The answer to that is even though Americans would save money, “with this discount would come fewer safety controls and a risk to the development of new life-saving medicines,” (2004). The government and these pharmaceutical companies feel that if we allow the importation of prescription drugs, many of these foreign drugs will not be screened properly and could be outdated as well. Mark McClellan, who is Commissioner for the Food and Drug Administration, testified before the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee recently saying, “Foreign outlets may dispense expired, sub-potent, contaminated product, an incorrect dose, or medication unaccompanied by adequate directions for use,” (2004). McClellan makes a great point, and screening these drugs is definitely a serious issue because you do not want anyone to acquire serious health complications or be killed, but I agree with Gutknecht once again as he states later in the article that safety concerns of foreign drugs are exaggerated and that “not one American has died from imported pharmaceuticals,” (2004). If we do decide to import prescription drugs, we should definitely step up the effort to screen them better, but if no one has be killed it is definitely made out to be worse than the situation really is.
The other problem is these drug companies feel that their profits will decline from importing drugs, therefore they will not be able to provide the funds to “devote to the research and development of groundbreaking new drugs,” (2004). First of all, other parts of the world are going to need