US Senate OKs Rx drug imports from Canada

The US Senate voted 68-32 to allow drugs, that have been approved by the Food and Drug Administration to be imported for personal use by US citizens who have prescriptions for their use. The proposal was appended to a $31.7 billion Homeland Security spending bill but, like similar legislative moves over the past seven years, it is likely to be removed from the final text during negotiations between both Houses of Congress.

The vote was vociferously criticized by some Republican Senators, including Judd Gregg (New Hampshire), especially given the context of the amendment being attached to a bill for protecting the USA from terrorism. Sen Gregg said: "if I were a creative terrorist, I would say to myself, 'hey, listen, all I've got to do is produce a can here that says Lipitor on it, make it look like the original Lipitor bottle, which isn't too hard to do, fill it with anthrax'."

Seizures of fake drugs worldwide have found that global giant Pfizer's Lipitor (atorvastatin), the world's most successful drug in terms of annual sales (Marketletters passim), is also one of the most targeted by counterfeiters.