Posted At Courier-Journal.com

BY : James R. Carroll

Rep. Anne Northup, R-3rd District, has won a critical battle over whether the Office of the United States Trade Representative can make it more difficult for Americans to bring in less-expensive prescription drugs from other countries.

Northup sponsored a provision blocking the trade representative from negotiating future trade agreements that prevent the importation of foreign pharmaceuticals. She wants Congress, not the trade representative, to decide on drug reimportation. "Americans in need of affordable prescriptions should not be barred from lower-priced medications by the fine-print in trade agreements," Northup said in a statement.

House and Senate conferees on Friday agreed to keep Northup's provision in the 2006 fiscal year spending bill for science programs, the departments of State, Justice and Commerce, and agencies including the trade representative.

Votes on the full bill are expected this week.

The Bush administration, which recently negotiated trade agreements with Australia, Morocco and Singapore with no-importation clauses, opposed Northup's measure, as did the pharmaceutical industry.

Ken Johnson, senior vice president of Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, said in a statement, "it is unfortunate for American patients" that the Northup provision survived.

"This amendment hampers the United States Trade Representative's ability to preserve patent protections on American products during free-trade agreement negotiations," he said.

"This amendment seriously undermines the USTR's ability to seek protections for all U.S. patent holders," he said. "… Without strong intellectual property protections in free-trade agreements, companies will have far less incentives to invest in future research and development of new life-saving medicines."
Keeping the staff

No rest for the shepherd.

When President Bush replaced Harriet Miers with his new Supreme Court pick, Samuel Alito, he did not replace the fellow who accompanies/introduces/briefs/helps out the nominee.

Former Indiana Republican Sen. Dan Coats was right back at work, at the side of Alito, as he was for Miers. Around town, Coats' job description is dubbed "the shepherd."
Steroids bill on steroids

The renewed push for legislation imposing tough penalties on professional athletes using steroids has gone straight to the Senate floor. Look for action this week.

The legislation, sponsored by Sens. Jim Bunning, R-Ky., John McCain, R-Ariz., and others, imposes drug tests and penalties similar to those used by the Olympics.

The bill would require all pro athletes in baseball, football, basketball and hockey to be tested at least five times a year -- at least three during the season and two during off-season -- without notice.

Violators would be suspended for two years without pay for a first violation, and banned from sports for life for a second violation.

"This is certainly not a bill any of us wanted to introduce," Bunning said Thursday on the Senate floor.

"We wish Congress did not have to get involved in the issue of drug abuse in professional sports. Unfortunately, this might be the only way to get professional sports to finally clean up its act."

McCain agreed, adding: "Our obligations are to the families of the young people who believe the only way they can make it in the major leagues is to inject these substances into their bodies."

The Senate already has had hearings on the steroids issue, so that is why the bill now awaits a full Senate vote.
Surprise

Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., helped to celebrate the retirement of Sam Moore as president of the Kentucky Farm Bureau at a dinner on Wednesday.

Moore is leaving after seven years as head of the bureau. He didn't know McConnell would present him with a framed copy of a tribute the senator had published in the Congressional Record the day before.

Moore, who has been on the farm bureau's board of directors since 1975, "has dedicated decades of his life to farming and his fellow farmers because he loves farming so much," McConnell said in his remarks in the Record.

Moore was instrumental in ensuring that half of Kentucky's proceeds from the national tobacco agreement -- about $3.6 billion over 25 years -- would help the state's agriculture industry, McConnell said.

"But perhaps Mr. Moore's crowning achievement is his pivotal role in engineering the tobacco buyout of 2004," the senator said, adding that Moore's "hard work and dedication to moving that project through was critical to our success."
Happy couple

Bunning's deputy press secretary, Jeff Marschner, 27, of Glenwood Landing, Long Island, N.Y., married Stacy Durgan, 29, of Wolfeboro, N.H., this weekend in Avon, Conn.

Durgan has been working for Countrywide Home Loans but is working on her master's degree to become an elementary school teacher.

The couple were scheduled to honeymoon in Hawaii.