Senior White house adviser David Axelrod said the Obama Administration "will push forward on safe re-importation of pharmaceutical drugs after the healthcare reform bill is finished."
According to Axelrod, "Let me be clear: The president supports re-importation, as he said, safe re-importation of drugs into this country. There's no reason why Americans should pay a premium for the pharmaceuticals that other people in other countries pay less for. And we will move forward on it."
If, by using the term “re-importation,” Axelrod means drugs that have been approved for sale in the United States, put on a truck or a plane or a ship and sent overseas – then he’ll be disappointed to find that there are precious few -- if any. If, on the other hand, he means “importation” – then what he’s saying is that the President supports the importation of foreign price controls.
And if, by “safe re-importation,” he means that the FDA can somehow be the guarantor of global drug safety (or even guarantor of drug safety for a dozen or so foreign nations) – then he’d better seek out expert opinion on the matter.
A good place to start would be the FDA.
