Drug importation — another security issue
To date, 81 Americans have died from taking contaminated
heparin, a widely used blood thinner.
These deaths should serve as a chilling reminder of the
danger posed by unfettered drug importation. Nevertheless, many lawmakers have
promised to allow the “safe” importation of pharmaceuticals.
But “safe” importation is impossible, as the
international drug market is awash with dangerous drugs. The World Health
Organization estimates that around 10 percent of the global drug supply is
counterfeit. Most foreign governments have pharmaceutical safety regulations
that pale in comparison to America’s.
The recent heparin fiasco is proof positive of that.
China, where the raw ingredients for heparin often are manufactured, has been
identified as the source of the contaminant.
The FDA has admitted that it hadn’t inspected the plant
responsible for the tainted heparin before it approved the plant’s products for
sale — a clerical error sent inspectors to the wrong plant with a similar
sounding name.
According to the Government Accountability Office (GAO),
the FDA inspected only 13 out of 714 approved Chinese pharmaceutical firms last
year. That’s down from an all-time high of 18 in 2004.
Worldwide, the average foreign drug manufacturer
importing into the United States is inspected only once every eight to 12
years. American plants, on the other hand, get checked at least every two
years.
Unfortunately, drugs imported from “Canada” aren’t any safer.
To be sure, many perfectly safe pharmaceuticals are
manufactured in Canada. But when an American imports a drug from a pharmacy
that claims to be headquartered in Canada, there’s no guarantee that the
shipment will contain drugs that are actually manufactured there.
In 2004, FDA researchers purchased three commonly
prescribed prescription drugs from an online pharmacy claiming to be “located
in and operated out of Canada.” None of the drugs was actually made in Canada,
and in lab tests, every single one of them failed the FDA’s standards for
purity and potency.
Politicians who want to keep the American people safe
from foreign threats should take note.
As Rudy Giuliani noted to the Senate Judiciary Committee
in July 2004, “It seems counter-intuitive to contemplate opening our borders
with regard to our medicine supply when in all other aspects of border security
and protection, we as a country are looking for ways to tighten security.”
Sally C. Pipes is President & CEO of the Pacific
Research Institute and author of “Miracle Cure: How to Solve America’s
Health-Care Crisis and Why Canada Isn’t the Answer.”