Judd Gregg

“ Believe me, if capital is disincentivized from going into these areas because they do not get a reasonable return, they will go somewhere else--they will go into developing software, into gaming, into whatever it is that happens to give them a reasonable return, into investing in some other country's activities in some area.
Capital does not flow out of goodwill into pharmaceutical production, into biologic production, into device production. ”

“ There are big issues at play relative to the future of the health of Americans on the issue of importation, on the issue of negotiation and Medicare, on the issue of biologic generics, and on the issue of making sure that children are adequately tested relative to the application of drugs which are brought to the market. There are big issues relative to safety and big issues relative to whether this country remains on the cutting edge of producing products that help people and give them a better lifestyle with a biological, pharmaceutical, or medical device. ”

“ If you go across the border, and you buy a pharmaceutical product which is alleged to be one thing, and it turns out to be another thing, the damage it causes you is going to be economically much more significant than the savings which you may have accomplished by purchasing that drug across the border. ”

“ Let's create a biologic generic which basically wipes out the capacity of the true biologic to actually come to the market and be successful. Let's create an atmosphere where testing on children of the drugs will basically not have a fiscal return which will make it worthwhile to test them on children. ”

“ If you were to follow all of the proposals from the other side of the aisle, or even a significant amount of them, we would see investment in this area start to dry up. We would see a contraction of the production of pharmaceuticals that save lives, of biologics that save lives, of devices that save lives. We would see fewer and fewer of those coming to the American people and to the world because people wouldn't invest in that activity any longer, or the investments would be significantly curtailed because money would flow in other directions. ”

“ In addition, we should not give up an industry or undermine an industry and geniuses and creative individuals who are producing products which are saving lives and are giving people a better livelihood. ”

“ The issue, of course, is the safety and efficacy of products which Americans buy. The FDA has been given the responsibility and has executed that responsibility extraordinarily well to make sure when an American citizen buys a pharmaceutical product or a medication, it is what it says it is and it does what the doctor prescribes. ”

“ More importantly, the reason I take the position I take is because I believe very strongly that America should not give up its lead in one of the industries where it is at the cutting edge and where it is producing jobs and where it is producing the intellectual capital that is going to keep us a vibrant, strong economy. ”

“ A lot of people are going to be hurt, and some people are going to die as a result of buying products which have not gone through FDA approval and which are not subject to FDA oversight because they are bought from a pharmacy or a provider in Canada, and that product may have come out of India or it may have come out of Afghanistan. It may have come out of Pakistan. It may be adulterated, and it may kill. The same can be said by a factor of 10 relative to purchasing on Internet pharmacies. ”

“ But if you listen to the other side of the aisle, almost every proposal they come forward with seems to be of the view that these products are grown in some wheatfield in North Dakota, that they do not take any effort, that they do not require any capital, they do not require any expertise, research, or time. All they require is to be price fixed, to be limited in their ability to be distributed relative to the price that is charged. ”

“ That is why I take the position I take, to say nothing of the fact that if you start haphazardly importing products from the Internet and from countries such as Canada, as strong as Canada is, without any FDA oversight or approval of those products, you are going to harm a lot of people at the end of the day. ”

“ What they are actually ending up doing is harming not only the people of today who won't be able to get the drugs because they won't be produced but people in the future because the drugs won't be brought to the market. There is a blindness to the fact that market forces are at work. ”

“ Case after case has been reported of people being significantly harmed and in some instances dying as a result of buying pharmaceuticals off the Internet that turned out not to be what they were represented to be from international sites. ”