June 20, 2019

Across the country and in Washington, elected officials are looking at how to reduce healthcare costs for everyday Americans. With rising premiums and deductibles, families are increasingly faced with higher costs for less care.

Fortunately, President Trump has made addressing the rising cost of care a number one priority for his administration, rolling out proposals which take aim at both macro cost drivers as well as tailored, narrow policy tweaks to help fix our broken healthcare system and inject market forces to bring down costs. Unfortunately, recognition of this crisis has led some officials to look to damaging proposals which won’t help address costs and will endanger patients.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has fallen victim to this pitfall.

This month, DeSantis signed into a law a proposal which will allow Florida to import prescription drugs from other countries, though only when approved by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Though DeSantis is undoubtedly well intended, violating the verified safety and standards of the U.S. pharmaceutical supply chain is a misguided approach which will endanger Florida residents.

The U.S. has the highest standards for drug safety in the world. Not so in other countries and, in many of them, the standards are so lax that their own citizens are routinely endangered by counterfeit drugs.

In fact, the World Health Organization released a study explaining the phenomenon plaguing drug importation- counterfeit drugs. Though a drug may be listed as produced in Canada, it is not uncommon for the drug to hail from a country with much less regulation.The WHO found that “1 in 10 medical products in low- and middle-income countries is substandard or falsified.”

While the U.S. system is secure, other health systems are not. Even Canada has struggled with counterfeit medicines. In fact, last year a Canadian pharmacy admitted to selling counterfeit drugs into the United States (illegally, it should be noted).

While the threat of counterfeit drugs can seem overblown, the effects are more likely to be sinister. For example, patients who purchased drugs from this pharmacy in Canada thought they were purchasing cancer treatments, but the fake drugs contained no active ingredients. This isn’t uncommon. A study published in the journal of American Health and Drug Benefits found that over 30 percent of counterfeit drugs do not contain any active ingredients.

These patients were receiving no benefit from these drugs. Though, in other heartbreaking instances, counterfeit medicines can easily and quickly result in death.

In another stark example, in 2015, police in Quebec busted a drug ring and seized two million counterfeit pills. Again, this was in Canada. A country which Florida would like to import drugs from.

The U.S. system is safe. Our FDA has worked tirelessly for years to ensure that the drugs produced in the U.S. are verifiably safe for patients. This includes adopting new technologies such as blockchain to help ensure that patients get exactly what they were prescribed.

Rather than allow countless counterfeit drugs enter and threaten U.S. citizens, keeping with the current FDA regulations for drug manufacturing will ensure the safety of all drugs circulating in the U.S. marketplace, protecting patients. Giving up these stringent regulations will only harm patients.

Due to the unsafe nature of imported pharmaceuticals, we urge HHS to reject the proposal offered by Governor DeSantis and to keep drugs and patients in the United States safe.