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Byron Dorgan Fights to Import Canadian drugs, Keep Out Canadian Cows

May 03, 2007 7:09 PM

ABC News' Z. Byron Wolf Reports: Sen. Byron Dorgan's D-N.D., state shares a long, desolate border with Canada and after today, his neighbors to the North must be looking across, thinking the man has mixed feelings toward them. It was, after all, this morning that Dorgan's long fight as a backer of prescription drug importation took a big step forward.

The measure, added by Dorgan as an amendment to an FDA authorization bill, withstood a challenge by Republicans and flaunts a White House veto threat. The Bush administration has safety and proprietary concerns about importing less expensive prescription drugs. At one point Dorgan held up nearly identical bottles of the prescription drug lipitor, both produced by a plant in Ireland -- the more expensive one to the U.S. and the cheaper one to Canada.

"As you can see, when made in the plant in Ireland, it is put in these bottles, identical bottles with a label that is blue in this case, red in this case, otherwise identical. the difference in this situation is that this bottle is sent to canada from ireland," Dorgan said.

"This bottle is sent to the united states. same pill, same bottle, made in the same manufacturing plant, FDA.-approved. The difference? the american consumer is told you get to pay twice as much for the identical drug. you get to pay twice as much. it describes a serious problem of what i believe is overpricing of prescription drugs in this country. We pay the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs. I don't know of anyone in this chamber who stands up and says let me sign up for that."

But later this afternoon, Dorgan's attitude toward the land of maple syrup and Mounties had changed. News broke that Candadian officials have discovered their 11th case of Mad Cow disease. introduced legislation that, according to his press release, "would prevent the U.S. Department of Agriculture from expanding imports of Canadian cattle until the agency implements a system that allows consumers to see in which country their meat was produced."

"I feel bad that the Canadians are having problems," said Dorgan in a statement. "But we have an obligation to look after our own beef industry first, and I’m going to keep pushing to make sure this decision is based on sound science, not politics."

May 3, 2007 | Permalink | User Comments (0)

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