Gil Gutknecht

Mr. GUTKNECHT

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Speaker, I want to give our friend from Illinois a few minutes because I know he has to leave.

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman; and hopefully tonight we are going to have another bipartisan opportunity to come together, Republicans, Democrats, Independents, conservatives, liberals, and talk about this. Let me just share, I have a lot of heroes. We all have heroes, but I want to talk about one in particular. Her name is Kate Stahl. Kate Stahl is 84 years old. She is a very active member of the Senior Federation back in Minnesota, and she was quoted in a recent copy of U.S. News and World Report, and the quote is, I would like nothing better than to be thrown in jail. She is a self-described drug runner. She helps people find affordable medications, in Canada principally, but she will also look other places. She goes on-line. She helps them buy drugs. She takes them up to Winnipeg to buy drugs. Kate Stahl is not a common criminal. She is an American hero. One of the statistics I have come across and one of the reasons I fight so aggressively on this issue, there was a study done recently by the Kaiser Foundation, and I checked this out because I spoke to the community pharmacists a few months ago. The study said that 29 percent of seniors say that they have had prescriptions that have gone unfilled because they could not afford them. So when I spoke to the community pharmacists a couple of months ago, I asked them the question, have you ever had the experience where a senior comes in, or it does not even have to be a senior, it can be a mother or father comes in with a prescription, hands it to you and you tell them how much the prescription is going to cost and they take a deep breath and they drop their head and they say, well, maybe I will be back tomorrow and they never come back? Shame on us. Shame on us. These drugs are available today in other industrialized countries for a fraction of what we pay, but they have something we do not have. They have parallel marketing or parallel trading in Europe, and they allow the pharmacists to literally shop where they can get the best price, whether it is for Coumadin or Synthroid or whatever it happens to be, and, as a result, they have affordable drugs. It really is time for us to open up markets, because markets work. Again quoting Ronald Reagan, ``Markets are more powerful than armies.'' We have to open up markets. We have to have some competition. And if we do that, we will have more affordable prescription drugs, not just for seniors but for moms and dads, families, and for small businesses. Mr. Speaker, I yield back to my friend from Michigan because he has been a champion of small businesses, and particularly a champion for small businesses. He has seen what is happening to manufacturing and one of the reasons for the cost of health care. Perhaps he wants to talk a little about why this does matter whether you are a senior citizen or a manager of a small manufacturing plant.

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Reclaiming my time, Mr. Speaker, the gentleman is absolutely correct. I have been astonished at the response by some of the people here in Washington. We all claim to be very concerned with the fact that we have lost over 2 million manufacturing jobs in the last 4 years; and some people are saying, well, the answer is more government programs; and some people say, well, the answer is tax cuts. But here is an idea that if we are right, and I think we are, and I think the evidence supports this, that we can save at least $630 billion. Now, if you want to allow Americans to keep and spend $630 billion of their money, here is a good place to start; and it does not cost the Federal Treasury a dime. It just begins to equalize, so no longer will American consumers and American taxpayers be subsidizing the health care cost of the rest of the world. And I just want to come back to one point, because people do not realize, and the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Emanuel) started talking about this, we subsidize the pharmaceutical industry in three separate ways. First of all, we subsidize them in the tax codes because they get very generous tax benefits for what they do on research and so forth. They get to write off at least 50 percent. In many cases, they get a dollar-per-dollar tax reduction in the form of tax credits. Secondly, we subsidize them in the amount we spend on research. This year, and I am proud of this fact, we will spend about $27 billion in taxpayers' dollars through the NIH, the National Science Foundation, actually through the Defense Department. We spend an awful lot of money on research which ultimately benefits the pharmaceutical industry. With the drug tax laws, for example, we spent almost $.5 billion taxpayer dollars developing Paxil. Then we licensed that drug to a pharmaceutical company and they went out and sold $9 billion worth of Paxil to the market. Even though we took it all the way through phase 2 trials at taxpayer expense, they have sold $9 billion and they paid us a royalty of $35 million. Finally, we subsidize the pharmaceutical companies in the prices we pay. As the gentleman said, I think we ought to subsidize the people in sub-Saharan Africa, but I think the time has come to say we will no longer continue to subsidize the starving Swiss.

Mr. GUTKNECHT. And we should do something about it. Mr. Speaker, we have been joined by our friend, the gentleman from Vermont, someone who has been in these trenches fighting this battle I think for even longer than I have.

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Vermont.

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Well, if the gentleman will yield back, that is the question I asked my colleagues and that is how I got involved in this debate. I always tell people I feel like the little boy who came in and asked his mother a question, and his mother was busy. She said go ask your dad. And he said, well, I did not want to know that much about it. The more I have learned about this, the more pernicious this thing is. But what really got me involved was several years ago on behalf of my pork producers, when the price of hogs dropped from about 37 cents a pound down to about 9 cents a pound, 8 cents a pound, my hog producers started calling me saying, Congressman, can you not do something about this? I said, I do not know what I can do. They said, at least can you stop the Canadian hogs from coming into the American market making our situation even worse, making the supply and demand thing even worse? Can you do something about the Canadian hogs, at least stop them? So I called the Secretary of Agriculture and I called the Secretary of Commerce and I got essentially the same answer. They said, well, that is called NAFTA. It is called free trade. All of a sudden a light bulb went on above my head. I said, wait a minute, we have free trade when it comes to pork bellies and blueberries, but we do not have free trade when it comes to Tamoxifen? The one area where Americans could save billions.

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Billions. And that is when I began to move. As Winston Churchill once said, ``The difference between a fan and a fanatic is, a fanatic is one who cannot change their mind and will not change the subject.'' I have become a fanatic on this, and we will not step down.

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Exactly. It is all funded by the pharmaceutical companies. We know that, and we will be able to prove that within the next 72 hours. But let me come back to this point. They know the rules. You cannot get the abortion drug RU-486 with a prescription in the United States. You can only get it administered by a doctor in a hospital or in the doctor's office. In other words, he or she cannot write you a prescription and you get it filled at the pharmacy. The pharmaceutical industry knows that, and that is why this is such a bald-faced lie. In fact, they do not even go so far as to say you cannot even get it legally in Canada or Mexico. It is outlawed completely in those countries. Only the FDA has allowed the abortion drug. I do not think they should, but whichever side of the story you are on, stick to the facts. And if anybody knows the facts, it is the companies that produce it. It is not laughable. It is sad. I used to think of them as an ethical industry. No more. It is unethical. What they are doing is dishonest, and they deserve all of the spite that the consumers are beginning to heap upon their shoulders.

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Vermont (Mr. Sanders).

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Speaker, we have had a very lively discussion. This is an important debate. Ultimately, it is about hundreds of billions of dollars that Americans pay and will be forced to pay if we do not do something about it. There is nothing in it for any of us except the satisfaction of doing what we believe is honestly right. I will close with the words of the American philosopher and country western singer Tom Petty, ``We won't back down.''

Mr. GUTKNECHT

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Speaker, I rise again tonight to talk about the high cost of prescription drugs, and I am going to be showing a chart and talking about what I think are some pretty stubborn facts. But before I do, I just want to remind the Members of something that Abraham Lincoln said over 100 years ago: You can fool some of the people some of the time, you can even fool all of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time. Earlier, my colleague, the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Burton), rose and showed some righteous indignation about some of the kinds of advertising that are going on right now, and they are now saying that somehow if we are in favor of opening up markets to give Americans access to world-class drugs at world-market prices that somehow we are in favor of abortion, which is just a ludicrous argument to make. It says a lot about those groups, and I think my colleague, the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Burton), raised some of the questions about the ethics of those groups who are sending out those brochures and running those ads. I think it is fair to ask where the money really comes from, and I think we all know where the money really comes from, but at the end of the day I think we ought to ask ourselves about the ethics of the pharmaceutical companies, the companies who are actually paying for those ads, the companies who actually develop and sell RU-486. Why is it that they want to change the subject? Why is it they do not want to talk about the real issue? They want to talk about anything they can except this chart. The reason is simple. They cannot defend this chart. They cannot even explain this chart. I have asked them to explain this chart. Let me go through some of the numbers on this chart. These are not somebody else's numbers. This is not some goofball group from Florida. This is not some left wing or right wing extremist. These are my numbers. Because I went to Germany 2 months ago, and we bought 10 of the most commonly prescribed drugs. The total price in the United States for those same drugs, $1,389.65. We paid $373.30 in Munich, Germany. I cannot explain that. They cannot explain that. We know that, for example, every day Americans consume thousands of tons of imported foods. Last year, we imported 318,000 tons of plantains. We imported $1.1 billion worth of bananas last year. Americans gladly consume those bananas. About 40 percent of the orange juice that we consume in the United States now comes from other countries. We are an importer. Markets work. The reason we import is because we can buy those products cheaper in those markets than we can produce them here in the United States. But in many cases we are not talking about products that are produced somewhere else. Many of these products are produced here. But we are talking about products produced in FDA-approved facilities, drugs like Coumadin, which my father takes. We bought Coumadin in Munich, Germany for $21. This same Coumadin package in Washington, D.C. sells for $89.95. Let us talk about ethics. Two years ago this package of drugs in the United States sold for $64. Nothing has changed. This drug was developed in the 1940s at the University of Wisconsin Veterinarian School. How did it go from $64 2 years ago to $89 today? Is that ethical? Is that responsible? Yet they sell it in Germany for $21. My colleague talked about Tamoxifen. The American taxpayers paid to develop Tamoxifen. We paid hundreds of millions of your taxpayer dollars to develop Tamoxifen. They sell it in Germany for $60. A woman suffering from breast cancer here in the United States will pay $360 for this drug. Is that ethical? Is that responsible? Is that the kind of companies we are dealing with? Go down the list. We had another example in several of the publications. The drug Taxol, we paid for the development. We took it through phase 2 trials at the NIH, the National Institutes of Health. We paid for all of that, hundreds of millions of dollars; and then the company came along and signed a licensing agreement, and we have gotten royalties back of $35 million, but the company has had sales of $9 billion. We got $35 million for the taxpayers after spending almost $500 million for developing the drug, and they got $9 billion in sales. Let us talk about ethics and being responsible. We had a big debate last year about Enron and the stock holding companies and insider trading. We said this ethics thing has to change. This is one way we change it. We open up markets and hold people accountable, and things will change.

Mr. GUTKNECHT

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Speaker, I rise again tonight to talk about the price that Americans pay for prescription drugs relative to the rest of the world. As I have often said, I think we as Americans ought to be willing to pay our fair share. But as Members can see, and I apologize for this chart, the numbers are a bit hard to read for Members who are watching on C-SPAN in their offices, but if you cannot read the chart, it is available on my Website. Simply go to gil.house.gov, and Members can review this chart. This is a chart essentially showing the prices that we paid for prescription drugs, 10 of the most commonly prescribed prescription drugs, when I was in Germany 2 months ago. Then we asked some of the local pharmacies here in Washington how much those same drugs, same dosage and number of tablets, would be here in the United States. Let us take this drug, Coumadin. This is a drug that was developed originally at the University of Wisconsin veterinarian schools. It was a rat poison. It was designed to help kill rats. It is a blood thinner. When they consume it, they mix it with feed, and the rats eat it, and they go back to their dens and bleed to death internally. It was found that in small dose dosages this was very effective for people with heart conditions. My 86-year-old father takes Coumadin. We bought this drug in Germany for $21 American. This same package here in the United States sells for $89.95. Glucophage is another drug we bought in Germany. It is an effective drug against diabetes, borderline diabetes. I am not a doctor, and I do not play one here in Congress, but we bought this drug in Germany, 30 tablets, 850 milligrams, for $5. That same drug here in the United States sells for $29.95 for the same package. The report goes on and on. Prozac, we had a relatively small difference. We bought Prozac for $36.46, but here in the United States it was $49.95. But then a drug like Pravachol, the price we paid in Germany was $62.96. That same drug and same dosage in the United States is not $62 but $149.95. My wife takes a drug called Synthroid. She has a problem with goiter. Synthroid in the United States, 50 tablets of 50 milligrams sells for about $21.95. You can buy that exact same drug probably made in the same plant under the same FDA approval in Germany for only $4. So $21.95 in the United States, $4 in Germany. Then I come to the one that really chaps my hide because we hear about the reason these drugs are so expensive is because it is so expensive to develop them, the research and development costs. And I recognize there are costs, but let us talk about tamoxifen, which was essentially developed by the NIH. So we paid for it. The American taxpayers paid for virtually all of the research and development. We bought 60 tablets, 20 milligrams of tamoxifen in Munich, Germany, for $60. That same drug in the same package sells in the United States for $360. Now, tamoxifen is a very effective drug against women's breast cancer. We are happy to pay our fair share for the research costs; but as I always say, we ought to be willing to subsidize the poor people in sub-Saharan Africa, we should not be required to subsidize the starving Swiss. And that is what is happening today because American consumers are being held captive. Some people ask why are prices so much cheaper in Europe. Well, in part they have something called price controls. That is part of the answer, but it is not the whole answer. They also allow in Germany, for example, they allow German pharmacists to do parallel trading. So the German pharmacist can order the drug wherever they can get it the cheapest. That is called competition. That is how markets work. Mr. Speaker, I have introduced a bill called the Market Access Act, which would allow American pharmacists and American consumers to have that same kind of opportunity to go into the world markets. There are roughly 25 countries that are already recognized as having similar FDA- type regimens as we have in the United States, 25 countries are already recognized in the statute, and the bill I have would allow our pharmacists and our consumers to have access to those markets. It may not be the perfect answer, but if Members do not like my plan, what is your plan? What is the administration's plan? What are we going to do about this? Because I will tell Members if next year we come back, and if Americans are still required to pay six times the amount for the same anticancer drug, they are not going to say shame on the pharmaceutical industry, they are going to say shame on us. The time has come to make certain that Americans have access to world-class drugs at world market prices.

Mr. GUTKNECHT

Mr. GUTKNECHT. We are only talking about FDA drugs, and more importantly than that, you are correct. There are only, as I am told, about 600 facilities in the world that can produce FDA-approved drugs, and so that is the only drugs that we would permit, and we believe that a program can be established very easily using modern technology so that we can be as certain that these drugs are, in fact, Coumadin or Glucophage from an FDA-approved facility. We can be just as assured of that even if we get the drugs from Geneva, Switzerland, or from right down the street. We want safe drugs. We want seniors to be safe. And I think we have the plan that will do that.

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman from Illinois, and I want to make a special point. This is time on the Democrats today. We have Democrats and Republicans that are agreed on this because, as I said in the past, this is not a matter of right versus left. It is a matter of right versus wrong, and it is simply wrong to require that Americans pay the world's highest prices for prescription drugs, even though we are the world's best customers. In virtually every other area that you can imagine, the best customers get the best prices, but that is not true in prescription drugs, and I began to research this story about 5 years ago, and the more I learned, the more upsetting and compelling this story really is. The story is that Americans are really held captive, and anytime you have a captive market, it is absolutely predictable that you are going to see the world's highest prices. I want to give you a few examples from this chart. I apologize, this chart is kind of hard to read, but I will show you some of the examples, and I will give you the total, because I was in Germany 2 months ago, and we bought 10 of the most commonly prescribed prescription drugs. What you see here on the chart is the prices that we paid in Munich, Germany, and what those prices would be for the same drugs, same quantities, same milligrams, here in the United States. Let me give you a few of those examples. This is a drug called Coumadin. It is a blood thinner, actually developed at the University of Wisconsin veterinarian schools, and actually originally developed as a rat poison, but in the United States, this box of drugs would sell for $89.95. In Germany we bought the drug for $21. Here is another drug, Glucophage, made by Merck. It is a very effective drug for diabetes. A 30-tablet, 850-milligram package in the United States, $29.95. You can buy that same package, this package of drugs we bought in Munich, Germany, for $5. The story goes on. Zocor, commonly prescribed drug, a very effective drug, the United States price, $89.95. You can buy that drug in Germany for $41.20. The grand total of these 10 drugs in Germany was $373.30 American, but if we went down to buy them here in Washington, D.C., or almost any city in America, the price would be $1,039.65.

Mr. GUTKNECHT. In fact, in many of the cases, I believe these drugs were made in the same plants, and they are shipped around the world. All we really are saying in our bill is let us do with prescription drugs essentially what we do with every other product, and that is allow market forces to work to make certain that Americans are not held captive, and as I have said, I think Americans should pay their fair share, but I do not think we should be required to subsidize the starving Swiss. We also have a colleague with us tonight, my good friend from North Carolina (Mr. Jones) who has joined us tonight, and he has been a strong proponent of opening markets and finding ways to get cheaper prescription drugs not just for senior citizens, but for all Americans. Ultimately we are going to have a prescription drug benefit for the taxpayers as well, and I would yield, if I could, a few minutes to the gentleman from North Carolina.

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman would continue to yield, I thank the gentleman from Illinois, and I thank my colleague from North Carolina as well. One of the arguments that they are making is this is not safe, you cannot be reimporting or importing or opening markets to these drugs. And once again, let me say, first of all, we are only talking about FDA-approved drugs from FDA-approved facilities, number one. Number two, what more and more of the companies are coming out with, and we require in our legislation, and that is, they begin to develop counterfeit-proof packaging, tamper-proof, counterfeit-proof packaging. The other thing people need to understand is we are not saying people have to do this. This is their option. We want to make certain that they are not treated like common criminals, because right now seniors are doing this. There was a study done by a University of Texas professor. A million Americans right now are crossing the border to buy their prescription drugs, and they have no assurance, no tamper-proof packaging, and worse than that, they are treated like common criminals by their own government. So we want to make it safer. We actually want to put in a regimen, a plan, so that people can do this and their pharmacists can do this, because my vision is people ought to be able to go to the local pharmacist, and he ought to be able to shop for the best price on the best drugs. It is called parallel trading. That is what they do in Europe, and it is why they get cheaper prices than we do here in the United States. We are concerned about safety, too. I do not want people dying from taking contaminated drugs, but remember this: Every day we import thousands of tons of food. Last year we imported 318,000 tons of plantains, and so if someone wants to tamper with things that go into people's mouths, they are more likely to do it with food products than they are with something that comes in a tamper-proof, counterfeit-proof package.

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman is correct. The Congressional Budget Office, which are our official bean counters, if you will, have estimated that seniors in the United States over the next 10 years will spend $1.8 trillion on prescription drugs. We can see by this chart, and I think we were very conservative, we estimate that if we simply open markets, as we do with plantains and with prunes and with pork bellies, if we just open up the markets as we do with everything else, we will see prices in the United States drop by at least 35 percent. Well, 35 percent of $1.8 trillion is $630 billion that we will save American consumers and/or taxpayers. If I can give just one more example. We had an Inspector General who testified before the Committee on the Budget just yesterday, her name was Dara Corrigan, and she estimated, and these are her numbers not mine, but her numbers were that last year Medicare through the hospitals bought $8.2 billion worth of prescription drugs. If they could have bought those drugs at the same price that the VA buys those drugs, her estimate was that taxpayers would have saved $1.9 billion last year. Now, my assertion is that if we open up the markets, we are going to save the VA, we are going to save Medicare, we are going to save Medicaid, we are going to save consumers, we are going to save corporations. Last year, General Motors spent $1.3 billion on prescription drugs. Imagine how much they could save if they had access to world market prices.

Mr. GUTKNECHT. I would just simply say that I hope we can have a vote. This is the people's House. Vox popolurum est vox dei, the voice of the people is the voice of God. There is where the people's business should be done. Occasionally we have partisan differences and we vote differently, but this is one that crosses party lines. It is not a matter of right versus left; it is right versus wrong. It is wrong for Americans to be held captive.

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Absolutely. I know the gentleman wants to catch his plane, but I just want to say this. Regardless of what happens in the next week or two, we are not going to go away. This issue will not go away. We will stay here, on a bipartisan basis, every night for the next 6 months, 9 months, 3 years. We are not going away. The issue is not going to go away. There is no way that our leadership, the administration, the FDA, the drug companies can defend a situation where Americans pay two and a half times more for the same drugs than our counterparts in Germany. I am not going to give up, my colleagues here tonight are not going to give up, and God bless you all.

Mr. GUTKNECHT

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Speaker, I rise again tonight to talk about the high price that Americans pay for prescription drugs relative to the rest of the world. I have with me a chart, and some of my colleagues have seen this chart, and I apologize, it is a little hard to read for the Members who are watching in their offices on C-SPAN, but what it really shows us are 10 of the most commonly prescribed drugs that I and my staff purchased when we were in Germany about 2 months ago at the Munich Airport Pharmacy, and then a comparison of what those drugs sell for here in the United States. Let me just read for my colleagues what some of those prices are. Cipro, a drug that we learned a lot about when we had anthrax here in the Capitol complex, is a very effective antibiotic, made by a company called Bayer. They also make aspirin and a lot of other drugs. The price in Germany for 10 tablets, 250 milligrams: $35.12. That same Cipro here in the United States: $55.05. A drug that my father takes, Coumadin, is a blood thinner. Some of my colleagues say, well, we cannot open up markets because people might get rat poisoning. Mr. Speaker, Coumadin is rat poisoning. It was developed at the University of Wisconsin veterinary schools, and it sells under the generic name of Warfarin. But Coumadin in the United States, and my father takes it, the price for 100 tablets, 5 milligrams in the United States: $89.95. In Germany you can buy that same Coumadin for $21. Glucophage is a very commonly prescribed drug for people who have borderline diabetes. In the United States the price is $29.95 for 30 tablets. In Germany we bought that drug for $5. Another drug that we paid for, the taxpayers, you paid for this drug, Tamoxifen, a very amazing anti-breast-cancer drug, we paid about, I think the number was over $500 million through the NIH to develop and take the drug through phase 2 trials. We pay in the United States $360. They buy that drug in Germany for 60 bucks. Now, we paid for the development, and now, apparently, we are paying for the marketing, the advertising and, ultimately, for the profit on that drug. The bottom line is these 10 drugs bought in Munich, Germany, the total price in dollars: $373.30. Those same drugs bought here in the United States: $1,039.65. My colleagues do not have to take my word for it. Today, like Diogenes, I finally found an honest person inside the administration who will talk honestly about what we pay for drugs. She is an IG, an inspector general, in the Department of Health and Human Services. Her name is Dara Corrigan. She testified before the Committee on the Budget today. She said that Medicare last year spent about $8.2 billion on drugs, drugs that are administered in hospitals. She said, according to her research, that the Medicare people paid $1.9 billion more than they would have had to pay for the same drugs had they bought them through the VA. Now, I asked her, had they or anybody done any comparisons between how much Medicare is currently paying or will pay as we move down the road towards a prescription drug benefit under Medicare; how much would they pay if they could have bought those drugs from pharmacies right off the rack in Germany or Switzerland or some other industrialized country? The bottom line is this, I say to my colleagues: We need to do something about this, because it is not so much shame on the pharmaceutical industry, although it is hard for me to defend this. I am a Republican; I believe that profit is a good word. But profiteering is a bad word, and somehow we have to come to grips and create a market environment so that we have competitive prices, because Americans deserve world-class drugs, but they deserve to be able to buy those drugs at world-market prices. So my answer may not be the best answer, but at least it is an answer: to bring an element of competition, competitive tension, into the prices that we pay relative to the rest of the world. I believe that Americans should pay their fair share of the cost of research, and I am proud of the fact that we do pay our fair share. In fact, I think we ought to be able to subsidize, we ought to be willing to subsidize the people in sub-Saharan Africa, but I do not think we ought to have to subsidize the starving Swiss. This is not just about economics, it is not just about the prices we pay. There is a moral undertone to this. I think, I say to my colleagues, it is time for us to take a very clear stand. The rumor is we may actually get a vote on this in the next week or 10 days. When we do, we are going to be asked, will we stand with the large pharmaceutical companies, or will we stand with our consumers? I hope we will give the right answer.

Mr. GUTKNECHT

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Speaker, I rise tonight in honor of Minnesota's 135th Infantry. It is hard for us to imagine what it must have been like in the spring of 1861 when cannons announced the first battle of the Civil War by firing on Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor. Minnesota's first Governor, Alexander Ramsey, happened to be in Washington on other business. Upon learning the news, he raced to the White House to become the first Governor to volunteer troops for the Union Army. A few nights later, in Red Wing, Minnesota, William Colvill used his considerable size and agility, as he stood almost 5 feet, 5 inches tall, to elbow his way to the front of the line to become the first volunteer in the first regiment of the first State that volunteered troops to preserve the Union. Minnesota's First Regiment fought with distinction in many of the bloodiest battles in the Civil War, including Fredericksburg, Bull Run, and Antietam. American history has a special footnote, however, to commemorate their actions on July 2, 1863 in that most famous of Civil War contests, the Battle of Gettysburg. General Winfield Scott Hancock, commander of the Union forces, saw the vulnerability of General Sickles' New Yorkers, who had moved forward, leaving a huge gap in the Union line. Hancock noticed that the First was positioned somewhat south of the middle of the long Union line on Cemetery Ridge. He nervously rode up and asked, Colonel Colvill, how long can you hold your position? Colvill, who spoke in short, crisp sentences firmly answered, ``General, to the last man.'' Now, this was no idle boast. By the end of that day, the regiment would suffer 82 percent casualties. That single phrase, ``to the last man,'' survives today as the motto of the Minnesota National Guard detachment that traces its heritage to the Minnesota First Regiment. When the regiment headed off to war from Fort Snelling in 1861, they were 1,023 strong. After Pickett's charge at Gettysburg had been repelled only 2 years later, just 67 men could answer the call. The Minnesota First went on to see action in the Spanish American War and served with distinction in the Philippine Insurrection. During World War I it was mustered into service, but did not see action as a unit. That changed in 1941 when war clouds gathered far across the sea. The 135th Infantry became the first division to be activated and shipped out. Advance units of the 135th sailed to Africa to take on the famed Africa Corps of Field Marshal Rommel. Despite being outmanned and underequipped, the 135th turned back the Desert Fox and his Army. After World War II, the 135th once again saw action in Korea. Today, the 135th is a battalion; no longer a regiment. It has five companies compared with 20 years past. It is concentrated in southeastern Minnesota as a member of the historic 34th Red Bull National Guard Division. That is why, this July 11 through 13, the thin ranks of the 135th Infantry's combat veterans of World War II and the Korean War, the ``Sons of Colvill'' as they are known, will gather to remember. They will close ranks in Mankato, Minnesota, to honor those who have fallen and to remember one more time the sacrifices of a generation. Once again, they will listen to the special music that identifies the 135th: ``March of the Red Bull Lesions,'' ``The Old Gray Mayor,'' ``The Sons of Colvill.'' It will be a final hoo-ah for the surviving men of World War II, and it will be one more commemoration for the thinning ranks of the Korean War vets. And, it will be one last chance for us to say, ``thank you, well done, oh good and noble servants. You have brought hope and freedom to millions who will never know your names.'' Mr. Speaker, I salute the brave Minnesotans who have given so much to keep the lamp of liberty burning brightly throughout the world. To the families of those who have made the supreme sacrifice, we cannot adequately salve the wounds that will never heal. The best that we can say is that we will never forget. May God bless you. May God continue to bless our country and all who defend her.

Mr. GUTKNECHT

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Speaker, let me first of all say that the gentleman from Ohio who just spoke, he and I strongly disagree. I happen to believe that it is time to modernize Medicare, it is time to give seniors more choices, and we will come to different conclusions on that particular issue. But there is an issue that we do agree on, and that is that Americans pay far too much for the same pharmaceuticals. Last week, on Thursday, I was privileged to welcome to the Capitol and to one of my news conferences a true American hero. Her name is Kate Stahl. Kate Stahl wears a little pin that says ``Kate Stahl: Old woman.'' She is 84 years old and she is proud of the fact; in fact, she describes herself as a drug runner. I would encourage Members to get a copy of the June 9 edition of the U.S. News and World Report, and they will see a picture of Kate Stahl in that edition. And in there it says, and she is quoted as saying, ``I hope they put me in jail.'' Because what she does every day, working with the senior Federation in the State of Minnesota, is she helps seniors get access to world-class drugs at world-market prices. As a result, our own Federal Government treats her as if she is a common criminal. But she is prepared to go to jail to make a point, and that is that Americans should not have to pay the world's highest prices for prescription drugs. We also welcomed to Washington last Thursday Dr. Wenner from Vermont. She is working with pharmacists in Canada so that her patients from her clinics can save, and these are her numbers, have been saving 62 percent on the same prescription drugs by working with pharmacies in Canada. Now, the FDA acknowledged at a hearing that we had last week that any of the evidence about safety is only anecdotal. As a matter of fact, by their own numbers, they cannot come up with a single case where an American patient has suffered serious injury as a result of taking a legal prescription drug from a pharmacy from a different country. We also know that more people have become seriously ill and some have actually died from eating imported fruits and vegetables. We know that, for example, in one year, just a few years ago, over 1,100 Americans became seriously ill by eating raspberries that had been imported from Guatemala. Now, when we talk about safety, I think the real question is, who are we protecting from whom? Who is really being protected by our FDA? More and more of us are coming to the conclusion that the only people really being protected are the big executives of the large pharmaceutical companies. We ask ourselves, why are Americans, the world's best customers, paying the world's highest prices? And the answer is, because we are a captive market and because our own FDA literally puts a border around our country and will not allow Americans to have access to those drugs. As I mentioned, we import thousands of tons of food every day from all over the world. Last year, for example, we imported 318,000 tons of plantains. People say, well, somebody might get into these Fed Ex packages and get inside the tamper proof packages and somehow substitute counterfeit drugs, but again, the evidence of that is anecdotal at best, and if we stop and think just for a moment that if terrorists really wanted to get at the broad base of the American consumers, would they really resort to trying to break into UPS offices, Fed Ex offices to get into those packages and somehow tamper with those pharmaceuticals? I think common sense tells us that that simply is not going to happen. We as Americans should be willing to pay our fair share for all of the costs of the research and development for the miracle drugs that are coming out of the pharmaceutical companies that help save lives. We ought to be willing to pay our fair share, but we have to be willing to say that it is time for us to say, yes, we will subsidize sub-Saharan Africa, but we are going to stop subsidizing the starving Swiss. I am a Republican. I believe that the word ``profit'' is actually a good word. There is nothing wrong with the word ``profit,'' but there is something wrong with the word ``profiteer,'' and I am delighted that we have people like Kate Stahl who will stand on the shoulders of the sons of liberty who threw tea in Boston Harbor because they saw something clearly was unfair, and they were not going to take it anymore. She represents literally millions of seniors and consumers here in the U.S. who are saying enough is enough, we are not going to take it anymore.

Mr. GUTKNECHT

Mr. GUTKNECHT. I would like to thank the gentleman from Illinois for taking a leadership role on this important issue. This is a huge issue. Members need to know that the estimate that the Congressional Budget Office is currently using is that seniors alone over the next 10 years will spend $1.8 trillion on prescription drugs. As the gentleman alluded to, I have been doing research. I should not say I have been doing research; there have been groups who have been sending me research for the last 4 or 5 years in terms of these great disparities between what Americans pay for name-brand prescription drugs versus the rest of the world. We have heard a lot about Canada; we have heard a lot about Mexico. But what has intrigued me the most is the differences between what we pay in the United States and what they pay in the European Union. What I have here is a chart of about 12 or 13 of the largest-selling prescription drugs. This chart is old and the numbers have changed, but the percentages remain the same. This information is confirmed by research that I have done, that others have done, several groups have done this; but let me just run through a few of these examples. Augmentin, sold in the United States for an average of $55.50. You can buy it in Europe for $8.75. I have examples of these drugs. We actually went to Germany and bought some of these drugs. This is Augmentin. This is Cipro. Cipro is made by the German company Bayer. They also make aspirin. As you can see, it is a very effective antibiotic and especially in the days when we had anthrax here in the Federal buildings, we bought an awful lot of Cipro. In the United States it sells for an average of $87.99. In Europe you could buy that same package of drugs for $40.75 American. Claritin, $89. It is $18 there. Coumadin, this is a drug that my father takes. He is 85 years old. It is a blood thinner, a very effective drug. Coumadin in the United States at that time was selling for about $64.88. In Europe you can buy it for $15.80. And the list goes on, but let me give an example, and the gentleman from Illinois, I think, made a great point about the amount that American taxpayers spend to develop these drugs. This is a drug that really chaps my hide. This is a drug, Tamoxifen. In many respects, this is a miracle drug. It is probably the most effective drug against women's breast cancer that has ever been invented. This drug we bought at the Munich airport pharmacy for $59.05. We checked here in the United States. This same package of 100 tablets of Tamoxifen in the United States sells for $360; $60 in Germany, $360 here. As I say, the evidence is overwhelming that most of the research, and I have a report if any of the Members would like a copy, this is a Senate report done in May of 2000, and in the Senate report, if I could just read into the Record, the National Cancer Institute, part of the NIH, has sponsored 140 clinical trials of Tamoxifen. It also participated in preclinical trials consisting of both in vitro, laboratory and live-subject tests. In other words, here in a Senate report we have confirmed that the taxpayers paid for much of the testing that was done on this drug. He also referred to the drug Taxol. There was a story just a couple of weeks ago in The Washington Post. Let me just quote some of these numbers about what the taxpayers paid to develop this drug and what the pharmaceutical company got out of it. Bristol-Myers-Squibb earned $9 billion from Taxol, which has been used to treat over a million cancer patients; but the National Institutes of Health received only $35 million in royalties. You go down the article a little bit further and it says, the GAO, the investigative arm of Congress, said that the NIH spent $484 million on research on Taxol through the year 2002. So the taxpayers invested $484 million, took it most of the way through the research pipeline, and we got $35 million back.

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Unfortunately, on Taxol I do not have that comparison. I do not think it is on my list, but the comparison is essentially the same. It is about three times more, or at least it was when it came off patent in the United States; it was more than three times more in the United States than they paid in Europe, and the American taxpayers paid for most of the R&D costs. By the GAO's own estimate, the taxpayers spent at least $484 million developing the drug, and I yield to my friend.