**Mr. Burton**: I come here tonight, Mr. speaker, to set a record
straight because last night the Food and Drug Administration
Commissioner, Mr. Mark McClellan, made some statements in a speech
before the national press club that I think need to be corrected. One of
the big problems we face as a nation and \-- is that pharmaceutical
products and the cost of them is totally out of line with the rest of
the world. For instance, and I have used this example many times on the
floor of the house, a woman who has breast cancer, a doctor will tell
her the drug of choice is tamoxifen, and tamoxifen in Canada costs about
1/6 or 1/7 what it does here in the united states. Mr. McClellan \--
there are a number of other pharmaceutical product that is cost five,
six, or seven times what they cost here in the united states. The same
thing is true in Germany, in Spain, in France, and a loot of other
countries in the world.

So the American people are paying five, six, or seven times what it
costs in other parts of the world for the very same pharmaceutical
product. Now, the big issue has been whether or not these products if
they are reimported into the United States are safe. Over one million,
probably a million and a half American citizens have been buying their
pharmaceutical products from Canada because they could get them so much
cheaper up there than they can here in the United States, and so there
was a question of safety. Are these people being injured by reimporting
these pharmaceutical products from Canada?

I\'ve had four hearings before my committee and subcommittee on this
very issue. And we had people from the food and drug administration, Mr.
Hushard, a deputy over there \-- Hubbard, a deputy over there, come and
testify. I asked him on four separate occasions to give us example where
people had been injured by pharmaceutical products, FDA-approved, that
had been reimported into the United States. He could not find one
example, not one. Yet the FDA continues to say that there is a safety
issue about the reimportation of these pharmaceutical products.

Now, they don\'t mention that they are supposed to check the food supply
and the importation of foods from around the world, but 40% of our
orange juice comes from around the world. And that isn\'t checked, maybe
1% is. And raspberries are import interested Guatemala, and we had 1,024
get sick or die from those, yet we don\'t mention those. Yet they talk
about the safety of pharmaceutical products where we haven\'t had one
case of people being damaged by reimportation of pharmaceutical products
from Canada.

Last night Mr. McClellan said in his speech, at the same time these
members, talking about members of congress, at the same time these
Members of Congress are clearly out of touch with the realities of
keeping our drug supply safe and the clear and present dangers to
America's drug supply that their bills would create. He's talking about
a bill we passed overwhelmingly here in the house that would allow
American citizens to buy pharmaceuticals at lower costs from other parts
of the world because they are costing so much here in the United States.
Now, the Food and Drug Administration in my opinion is marching in
lockstep with the pharmaceutical industry who is making huge profits
here while in other parts of the world are making very small profits.
The big profits and the big costs are to the American consumer while the
rest of the world doesn\'t bear those expenses. I think it\'s dead
wrong.

The safety issue is a bogus issue, and there\'s another example I'd like
to cite that shows it is not a safety issue. The FDA has approved 949
different sites where they produce FDA approved drugs in the world, 949,
in places like Haiti and India and china and elsewhere, 949 sites. When
they produce drugs in those sites they send them out in large
containers. Now, if there\'s a safety issue, it would be at those sites
because they\'re sending these drugs out in large containers where there
could be tampering taking place. But when they\'re sent in small amounts
from Canada or Germany to the United States citizens, they\'re usually
in containers that are tamper proof or could be made tamper proof so
that the people would have absolutely no safety issue to be concerned
about. And so I'm very disappointed that the Food and Drug
Administration continues to say to the American people and is trying to
scare senior citizens and others that they shouldn\'t buy their
pharmaceuticals from Canada or Germany or elsewhere because the safety
issues have not manifested themselves. And as a result, many Americans
who can\'t afford prescription drugs are going to the pharmacists and
say, how much is it? And the pharmacist says, well, it costs this much.
They say, maybe I'll come back tomorrow, or they buy half a prescription
and split the pills, while at the same time they could go to Canada and
buy the same prescription product for 1/6 or 1/7 of what it costs here
in the United States.

The Food and Drug Administration ought to be doing everything they can
to make sure Americans get the best product, the best prescription drug
at the best price in the world marketplace. World-class drugs at
world-class price. They shouldn\'t be trying to say there\'s a safety
issue when none exists. I yield back the balance of my time.