Gil Gutknecht

Mr. GUTKNECHT

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding to me. I just want to clarify something that has been circulated on the floor of the House. Supporters of the Cox-Waxman amendment mentioned in a Dear Colleague that Minnesota and other States have already banned the use of MTBE. While we always appreciate support for our environmental achievements in Minnesota, I want to make this very clear and set the record straight. Minnesota does restrict the use of MTBE, but we ensure air quality by maintaining a 10 percent blend of clean-burning ethanol gasoline. Congress and California should follow Minnesota's lead. Let us continue to maintain air quality, decrease dependence on foreign oil. Please, vote ``no'' on the Cox-Waxman amendment.

Mr. GUTKNECHT

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding me this time. Mr. Speaker, I would like my colleagues to join me in a little visualization, the Members that are gathered here and perhaps others here in the Chamber. This story, I will give credit, came from John Fund who is an editorial writer, and I would like you all to close your eyes for a minute if it makes it easier. Imagine for a minute that you go home today and open your mail and there is a letter there from an attorney who is a long ways away, and as you read that letter you realize that you have been named an heir to an enormous fortune that you did not even know existed and, all of a sudden, you are wealthy beyond your wildest dreams. Think about that for just a minute. You think, this is a windfall. I would like to take a significant portion of this money that I did not know I was going to get and I would like to put it into something that will help the less fortunate. Think about that for a minute. What would you do with that windfall? How would you help the less fortunate? Now, be honest. How many of you, the first thing you thought of was, I know, I will give the money to the Federal Government. Now, you might have thought about giving the money to the Salvation Army, you might have thought about giving it to the Red Cross, to a church group, to some other organization, but I will guarantee very few people gathered here in this Chamber today, very few Americans, the very first thing they would have said is, I know, I will give the money to the Federal Government. That is what this bill is really all about. Let us give faith a chance. We all know deep down in our bones that we have wasted billions of dollars over the last 20 or 30 years in failed social programs run by the Federal bureaucracy. All this bill simply says is, give faith a chance.

Mr. GUTKNECHT

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Weldon).

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Maine (Mr. Baldacci).

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time. First of all, I just want to make it clear to all Members the word ``appears'' is what is in the statute today. We are using exactly the same standard. If Members would like a copy, we certainly can get it to you. Ultimately, it comes down, as I said earlier, to this chart. Now, if Members can explain this chart, if they can defend this chart to their constituents, then go ahead and vote against my amendment. It is a very simple amendment. Earlier today we had a special guest who came and spoke to the Republican Conference, all the way up from Pennsylvania Avenue. I took some notes, and here are some of the things that he said. We all ought to pay attention. He said all wisdom does not reside here in Washington. We trust the people. Do we really? Do we trust the people to make decisions about their own health care? It is important to do what is right for the American people, he said. This is not a world of the perfect, he said. Finally, he said, and I quote, ``We have to be a Nation of free trade.'' Mr. Chairman, if we believe in free trade, if we believe in empowering the American people, should they not have a right to be able to import legal, FDA-approved drugs from G-8 countries? This amendment does not even include Mexico. It does not include narcotics. My amendment does not include codeine. This is a very simple, small amendment to say to the FDA, stop pestering law-abiding citizens. Stop pestering those senior citizens who are trying to save $37 on their Coumadin. That is ridiculous, it is indefensible, and this Congress ought to stop it. We are going to either stand today for free trade in America for consumers, we are going to stand for our senior citizens who are being gouged by the big pharmaceutical companies, or we are not, and we are going to have to make that choice, and every one of us is going to have to defend that vote. There are many votes we are going to take in the next year, and many of them we are not going to hear about again. But, I guarantee, this is one we are going to hear about, because we are going to be asked by our senior citizens, who did you vote with? When you had the chance to decide, were you with them, or were you with us? This is a simple amendment that says law-abiding citizens should have access to legal FDA-approved drugs from FDA-approved facilities, and it excludes narcotics. How simple is that? Now, last year a similar amendment passed this House, a much broader amendment, passed with over 370 votes. This is a time for choosing. Do we believe in free trade? Do we believe in competition? Do we believe that free trade is only about helping the big corporations, or is it about helping our consumers? We have a chance to make a very clear message to the FDA, to the bureaucracy, that they work for us, not the other way around.

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Kingston).

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, in terms of those pictures, I just want to point out that those happened years ago and are not happening now. Most importantly, I believe I am correct, those drugs were actually purchased on shelves in the United States. These are not drugs being brought in by Americans going to other places. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Vermont (Mr. Sanders).

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from Missouri (Mrs. Emerson).

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, I would just bring to the attention of the body that last year a much broader amendment than the one that I am offering, that would have had blanket reimportation, passed this House by a vote of 363-to-12. So we are talking about a very targeted amendment to essentially reinforce what the Congress said last year on a bill that passed the House overwhelmingly, passed the Senate overwhelmingly, and was signed by the President. So we are not opening new ground. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Miller).

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman from Vermont for yielding time to me. I want to show a couple of charts, because we are going to have several debates. This amendment is somewhat broader than the one that I have drafted, but it really revolves around a couple of important points. One is the issue of price. I do not think anybody here today is going to dispute this chart. I did not make this chart. This was done by the Life Extension Foundation. The information is about 2 weeks old. If we compare what Americans pay to what Europeans pay, and we are talking about Europe here, not Mexico, not Third World countries, but we are talking about Switzerland and Germany, where they do not have price controls, at some point we are going to have to explain to our constituents why we stand idly by and allow this chart to exist. The issue they are going to raise, and it is going to be a red herring, is safety. Safety. Understand this, Mr. Chairman, every day millions of pounds of raw meat and vegetables come into this country, and we have checked with the FDA, it is the Food and Drug Administration, their own study in 1999 said that 4.4 percent of the produce coming into the United States has dangerous pathogens, including 3.3 percent have salmonella. Do Members know what can happen if we get salmonella? We can get real sick. In fact, we can die. That is every day that is coming into the United States. Yet, there is no known scientific study where consumers in the United States have been injured importing legal drugs from G-8 countries, not one. As a matter of fact, if we had heard that, it would be all over. I suspect the pharmaceutical industry would have that over every newspaper and on television. The truth of the matter is that there is almost no risk to consumers to bringing legal drugs back into the United States. They are going to talk about illegal drugs. Nothing in the Sanders amendment, nothing in my amendment, nothing that is going to be discussed today is about legalizing illegal drugs. We are not talking about the Medellin drug cartel, which incidentally does ship billions of dollars worth of illegal drugs into the United States, and the FDA is unable to do almost anything about it. What we are talking about today is law-abiding citizens that have legal prescriptions that are buying FDA-approved drugs from other countries. If Members cannot explain that earlier chart, they should vote for this amendment and they should vote for my amendment.

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 3 minutes. Mr. Chairman, this debate is going to be very similar to the debate we had just a few minutes ago concerning the price of prescription drugs. I supported the Sanders amendment even though it was a bit broader than the amendment that I offer. I hope Members will take a few minutes to at least read the amendment that I am offering. Essentially what I am saying is, let us not stop law-abiding citizens from importing drugs from G-8 countries for personal use. The issue again is price. If Members do nothing else, please pay attention to this chart. Because at the end of the day, sooner or later we are all going to have to try at least to explain this, and there is no explanation. Americans, it is a fact, it is a dirty little secret in three different ways, we are paying all the research cost for all the other countries in the world, and we are doing it in three ways: first of all in the prices that we pay for prescription drugs, as Members can see, anywhere from 30 to 70 to 80 percent more than other countries in Europe; secondly, we are paying for the research in the money that we put into the NIH and some of the other science programs here in the United States. It amounts to almost $14 billion a year that the taxpayers are subsidizing research; and, finally, we subsidize the research through the Tax Code. When the pharmaceutical industry says, well, we are spending billions of dollars on research, that is true. The last year that we have numbers for, they spent about $12 billion on research. But do understand they pay hefty taxes, and as a result they can write off all of that research and in some cases they even qualify for research and development tax credits. So the real net cost to the pharmaceutical industry is far lower than most people say. What we are saying in this amendment is the game has to stop. We have been subsidizing Europe for a long time. It is time for us to stop subsidizing the starving Swiss. My amendment is very simple. It simply says that an individual who is not in the business of reimporting drugs shall have the right to bring those drugs in either on their person or by mail from any of the G-8 countries. This does not even include Mexico. We heard this big safety issue. We are going to talk a little bit about that. The truth of the matter is most of the safety issues that were talked about in the previous amendment exist today. We are not changing anything. We are not going to legalize illegal drugs. We are not going to tell people that they can bring in adulterated drugs. We are talking about law-abiding citizens that have a legal prescription that are bringing in FDA-approved drugs made in FDA-approved facilities. We have a problem right now, as I mentioned earlier, in terms of contamination on all of the food and produce we bring in. Yet we do not hear this ballyhoo because there is not a company out there, there is not an industry out there like the pharmaceutical industry that stands to make billions of dollars. Make no mistake, at the end of this debate, this is about money. I believe my simple little amendment that simply opens the door for personal importation could at the end of the day save American consumers upwards of $30 billion. Now, if Members wonder why individuals and groups have been spending millions of dollars over the last couple of weeks, it is about money.

Mr. GUTKNECHT

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Speaker, later today we are going to have a very heated debate about a simple amendment that I am going to offer to make it clear what the Congress intended last year in terms of prescription drugs and allowing seniors and other Americans access to drugs from other places. Much of the debate is going to revolve around this chart and the issue of safety. I just want to talk about a couple of these items here. For Glucophage, a commonly-prescribed drug for diabetes, in the United States the average price is $30.12 for a 30-day supply. That same drug made in the same plant sells in Europe for $4.11. Mr. Speaker, a lot of people are going to say, what about safety? What about safety? Well, there is not a single piece of evidence, not one piece of evidence, that anyone has been injured by bringing legal drugs back into the United States where they have a prescription. That is a fact. It is also a fact that 4.4 percent of the fruit and produce that comes into this country every day is tainted with serious pathogens. Mr. Speaker, we are going to have a chance to vote on this amendment. We are going to have to decide whether we are going to defend and explain this chart, and say that Americans should not have the access to legal drugs from legal countries around the world.

Mr. GUTKNECHT

Mr. GUTKNECHT. That is a correct statement based on all of the evidence and research that I have received from independent agencies. That is correct. In fact, we even have an independent study of Canada, where they do have price controls, but they are not as firm as some people think. But a study done by the Canadian Government suggests that they are saving Canadian consumers upwards of 50 percent.

Mr. GUTKNECHT. There again, the FDA holds that, yes, we have that law. Now, last year in Congress we passed legislation by overwhelming votes, it was something like 376 to 25 here in the House, it was 90- some to 3, I think, in the Senate, essentially going on record that we want to make it clear that law-abiding citizens should not be prevented from bringing legal drugs back into the United States, especially for personal use. So, the law, in my opinion, today is not clear. What we want to do with the amendment that I intend to offer tomorrow is clarify the legislative intent so there is no misunderstanding between the pharmaceutical industry, the FDA and American consumers that law-abiding citizens who have a legal prescription from a physician do have the right, using mail order, using the Web, using other methods, the telephone, they can call a pharmacy in Ireland or Geneva and be able to order that drug and have it brought back in the United States, so long, again, as it is a legal, non-narcotic drug. That is the amendment I intend to offer. That, I believe, will ultimately level the playing field between the prices that Americans pay and what consumers in other countries pay, regardless of whether or not they have price controls.

Mr. GUTKNECHT. That is correct.

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Absolutely. The counterfeit drugs that some of these people are talking, or adulterated drugs, first of all, I want to make it clear, my amendment does not make them legal. We are only talking about drugs that are otherwise legal in the United States, where people have a legitimate prescription from a doctor. Principally what we are talking about, where this really happens, is when people travel. For example, let me give you a story from one of the ladies at one of my town hall meetings. She has a skin condition, I think called eczema or psoriasis, but, anyway, she has a skin condition, and to deal with that and manage it, her doctor in Rochester, Minnesota, has prescribed a particular ointment only available with a prescription, and in Minnesota it sells for about $130 for one tube. She was traveling in Ireland a couple of years ago and began to run out of this cream. She went to a pharmacy in Ireland, she had her prescription with her, she went into the local pharmacy, took her prescription, they had exactly the same drug, in exactly the same tube, made by exactly the same company, and it was $30. Now, when she got back to the United States, she said to herself, because she needs about a tube of this ointment every month, so $130 times 12 versus $30 times 12 is a saving of $1,200 per year to this one individual. She looked at the tube, and on the tube or on the box that it came in, it had the name of the pharmacy, and it had the phone number. Now, she did what a lot of American consumers would do to save $1,200 a year. She picked up the phone, made a $2 phone call to Ireland and said, could I get that prescription refilled? The pharmacist over there said, absolutely. So he shipped her another supply.

Mr. GUTKNECHT. No. In fact, if the FDA wants to test it, and, frankly, I want the FDA to enforce laws against illegal drugs. But can I just show the gentleman another chart, because I think it talks to this very point. The problem with the FDA is not that they do not have the power to inspect; it is that they spend all of their time chasing legal drugs and law-abiding citizens. They are focusing on the wrong end. Last year, for example, instead of stopping illegal drugs imported by illicit traffickers, some of the people the gentleman heard testimony about, what they have done is spent most of their effort going after approved drugs with law-abiding citizens. Last year the FDA detained 18 times more packages coming in from Canada than from Mexico. We do not have a problem with Canada. We know a lot about the pharmacies in Canada. They have strong and stringent regulations in Canada. So why is the FDA detaining 90 times more packages from Canada? This was last year. Last year the FDA detained 90 times more packages from Canada than from Mexico. They are chasing law-abiding citizens bringing legal drugs in. What they need to do is focus on the traffic that the gentleman was talking about, where you have adulterated drugs, where you have got illegal drugs, where you have got all kinds of mischief going on, which, incidentally, the gentleman and I both know that as long as we try to play by the rules that the FDA has set in place now, you are going to get more of. Because more and more consumers who cannot afford some of these very expensive drugs, as we talked about before the gentleman arrived, Zithromax 500, $486 in the United States, $176 in Europe, what you are going to do is get more and more law-abiding citizens trying to figure out, how can I get those drugs, either legally or illegally, in the United States? Because the truth of the matter is that a drug somebody cannot afford is neither safe nor effective.

Mr. GUTKNECHT. And the FDA refused to use it, and that is why we need this amendment this year, is to clarify what we said last year, stop chasing law-abiding citizens with legal drugs and legal prescriptions. Let me just suggest this: I do not know how many of our colleagues have gotten a package recently from UPS or Federal Express, I believe even the Post Office does it now, but they put a bar code on those packages. The truth of the matter is I believe that within a matter of months, if the FDA was serious about this and did not want to pursue law-abiding American citizens who are trying to save a few bucks on their prescription drugs, they could create a bar coding technology to know where that package came from, when it was shipped, and, frankly, they could even put what is in it. In fact, we now have the technology, and it is used in most hospitals, the software was developed in Minneapolis, Minnesota, I can put them in touch with the people that developed it, in virtually every hospital now, when you go in the hospital, they put a bar-coded bracelet around your arm, and when they dispense prescription drugs in the hospital, when they bring them in, they take the wand across your bracelet and a wand across the bar code on the package so that they know, they can literally go back to their computer and know that at 3:10 p.m. this afternoon, you were given two tablets of Tylenol, or whatever the drug happened to be. That kind of technology is not science fiction. This is available today. And if the FDA is serious about this, we can help them solve the problem. The real issue is I do not think the FDA wants to solve this problem. They continue to commingle illegal drugs with legal drugs, and they continue to pursue the law-abiding citizens bringing in legal drugs, and yet there are literally millions of dollars of illegal drugs not only coming in from outside the United States, but, as the gentleman suggested, they are originating in the United States, and little or nothing is being done about that.

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Speaker, as I said earlier, markets work.

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Speaker, I agree with the gentleman. I think Members understand this issue, and it really is a choice between are you going to stand with your seniors who are having a difficult time affording their prescription drugs, or are you going to defend the FDA bureaucracy and the pharmaceutical industry. I think that really is the vote. At some point, if they vote, particularly if they change their vote this year, they are going to have to explain this chart to their constituents. They are going to have to explain why they should have to pay $30.12 for Glucophage in the United States when their European friends can buy it for $4.11. Let me just talk briefly, if I can, about the whole issue of safety because frankly, that is an area where our opponents have really focused in and there have been a lot of scare tactics, as the gentleman mentioned, running newspaper ads and radio ads and television ads. But the interesting thing is at least in my area, my seniors are a whole lot smarter than those ads, because most of the calls that are coming in are saying absolutely, this is the right way to go. They understand these price differences, they understand safety, they understand that they are willing to take a slight risk. The most important thing is when they go down to the local pharmacy, they might get the wrong medication. It might get in the wrong bottle. There is always some element of risk. Out there in New York Harbor, it is called the Statue of Liberty, it is not called the Statue of Security. We always take some risk. I cannot say that my amendment is risk-free, but as the gentleman indicated, the system today is not risk-free. But here is the interesting thing. In all of the advertising, they do not mention any people who have ever been injured by bringing legal drugs into the United States with a prescription. Not one. There is no known study that demonstrates that public health has been injured by patients importing legal medications with a prescription under the order of their doctor. What is more, millions of Americans have no prescription drug coverage. And as I said earlier, a drug that one cannot afford is neither safe nor effective. That is when people start cutting up their pills. That is when they start looking to back-street vendors or people who may be selling adulterated drugs. Let us just talk about safety, because when we mention the FDA, we talk about drugs and medical devices and so forth, but we forget that part of the reason this amendment is in order to the agriculture appropriations bill is because it is the Food and Drug Administration. They get their money through the agriculture appropriation bill. I asked my staff a few weeks ago, I said, now, wait a second. We import literally hundreds of thousands of pounds of raw meat every day. We import millions of pounds of fruits and vegetables. There must be some studies that people get sick, because I remember a couple of years ago, there were some kids who had gotten sick, about 200 kids who got sick from eating strawberries imported from Mexico. Maybe the gentleman remembers the story, that somehow, some pathogen had gotten on the strawberries and they got sick. Well, what did the FDA do about that? The truth is, almost nothing.

Mr. GUTKNECHT. That is absolutely correct. As I say, these are not my numbers. This was an Independent Life Extension Foundation study done just recently between the United States and countries in the European Union. Let me point out, and the gentleman is more familiar with some of these drugs than I am, that Glucophage, which is a drug that I understand that once many diabetes patients take, they take it daily, in fact I guess they have given them a new patent now. Instead of a twice-a-day tablet, there is a once-a-day tablet, which gives them an extra 17 years on their patent. We are talking about seven times more. You talk about a patient who is going to have to take that perhaps for the next 30 years, you start multiplying that difference, we are talking about thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars, multiplied by, I do not remember the exact number, but something like 35 percent of all Medicare expenditures are in one way or another related to diabetes-related illnesses. I believe the amendment we are talking about ultimately, when fully implemented, when consumers have access and understand how it works, could save American consumers $30 billion a year.

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Some do, some do not. We do not want to get into a debate, because, in truth, I do not support price controls. I think the best way to break the backs of price controls is to have open markets, because once the pharmaceutical industry and European countries realize that American consumers are going to be buying from them at their prices, I think it is going to force the European Union and the pharmaceutical industry to come to a better agreement so we level the playing field. That is really what I am trying to say. Yes, some have price controls, some do not. Every country has a slightly different regimen in how they deal with monopolies.

Mr. GUTKNECHT. No. We have made it clear to the FDA, as we did last year, you tell us what you need to do this job, and we will see that you get the funding. They asked for $23 million. We appropriated $23 million. Then after we had appropriated the $23 million and literally let them write the language, they reneged on the deal. So this year, in effect we are saying, and we really mean it. Now, in conference committee I am willing to work with them to get this done. Mr. Speaker, I do want to come back briefly, and I know the gentleman has to go; but I want to come back to the safety issue. There is another secret that the FDA does not want to talk about, and I started to mention how many tons of raw meat and fruits and vegetables come into the United States. There has been concern about pathogens and what they can do. The gentleman is a physician; and I might just ask him, if someone gets salmonella, what can happen?