WASHINGTON - The U.S. Senate is courting a presidential veto on prescription drug imports from Canada. The latest bid to legalize imports survived a major challenge Thursday in the upper house, where senators endorsed the idea by a vote of 63-28.
But there will be other hurdles for the amendment allowing more access to lower-priced medicine from Canada, part of a broader bill related to the Food and Drug Administration.
And even if it survives, President George W. Bush has vowed to veto the plan, also opposed by pharmaceutical companies with profit margins on the line.
Democrats, who now control Congress, have made legalizing cheaper bulk imports from Canada and other countries a priority.
A similar measure has been introduced in the House of Representatives.
"We are paying the highest prices for brand-name prescription drugs in the world and that's not fair," said Senator Byron Dorgan of North Dakota, who sponsored the amendment.
"Let's make the global economy work for everybody."
The FDA and some legislators argue imports open the door to tainted or counterfeit drugs and there are other ways to reduce drug costs.
But Senator Bernie Sanders from Vermont, who started taking his constituents across the border to get drugs in the 1990s, said prices won't drop enough while the pharmaceutical lobby wields such power.
A recent Washington Post article estimated big drug companies spent US$900 million lobbying legislators and administrators between 1998 and 2005, while making more than $319 million in campaign contributions from 1990 to 2006.
"The time is long, long overdue for the U.S. Senate and the U.S. House to stand up the pharmaceutical industry, the most powerful lobby in Washington, and say enough is enough," said Sanders.
Sanders is also pushing a measure authorizing the government to negotiate prices for drugs developed with federal funding.
The Senate measure is part of a wider bill giving the FDA more regulatory powers over prescription drugs and reauthorizing the system of user fees the agency charges drug companies and manufacturers of medical devices.
Some groups in Canada worry that legalizing imports will spark a major increase in U.S. demand, causing supply problems north of the border.
Others say there won't be a big crunch since many of the drugs that Canadian companies send south are supplied by some 30 other countries.
Still, many say federal Conservatives should move to ban bulk exports to the United States.
Canadian mail-order pharmacies make C$1 billion a year by employing about 3,000 people to supply some three million Americans.
