Posted At Kentucky Courier-Journal

By: James R. Carroll

WASHINGTON -- Rep. Anne Northup is joining forces with a bipartisan group of House members and senators in an effort to allow imports of cheaper prescription drugs.

Northup, R-3rd District, said a bill will be unveiled today at a Capitol Hill press conference to bar restrictions in future trade agreements on Americans buying medicine from other countries.

"The trade representative can change, administrations can change, but I think that they shouldn't be fixing this policy," Northup said yesterday.

"The question of whether consumers have access to the international market (for drugs) ought to be a decision that Congress makes and people in policy-making positions make -- people that are elected," she said.

The White House did not respond yesterday to a request for comment. But the Bush administration, House Republican leaders and the pharmaceutical industry have opposed making it easier to buy drugs from abroad. The Department of Health and Human Services has not certified drug importation as safe.

The White House last month issued a position statement saying it would fight any provision "that purports to limit the president's exercise of the exclusive authority vested in him by the Constitution to negotiate agreements with foreign countries and international organizations."

Ken Johnson, senior vice president for the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, the industry's trade group, said in a statement that the group had not seen the new measure, "but our position on importation remains the same."

"We oppose any legislative scheme that would bypass the (Food and Drug Administration's) strict safety system and puts health at risk," he said.

"If it mirrors other flawed legislation already being discussed, it could allow drugs from countries like Slovenia, Slovakia, Estonia and Latvia to come into the country," Johnson said. "Vulnerable patients would be compelled to play Russian roulette and to take medicines that could be tainted or dangerous."

Northup and other members of Congress are upset over recent trade agreements with Australia, Singapore and Morocco that prohibit drug imports from those nations, even if Congress makes such imports legal.

She and her allies earlier attached an amendment to a House spending bill to stop such provisions in future trade agreements, but the Senate version of the spending measure does not have a similar provision.

And even if the provision survives final negotiations, it would be good for only one year, Northup said.

"We felt like we needed something a little broader," she said of the legislation for a permanent change, called the "Protecting Free Trade in Pharmaceuticals Act of 2005."

Northup is co-sponsoring the measure with Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., and Sens. David Vitter, R-La., and Deborah Stabenow, D-Mich.

Northup said the pharmaceutical industry secured the bans on drug imports in the recent trade agreements as part of an effort to preserve high drug prices in the U.S. market.

The industry group has denied shaping the trade agreements in its favor. But drug companies have said that allowing drug imports in future trade agreements could interfere with the rights of U.S. patent holders.

Northup and the other sponsors of the new legislation also are proposing that an advisory panel to the U.S. trade representative, which includes the pharmaceutical industry, also include consumers.

"They're not represented," Northup said.