Senator Leahy Supports Bringing Drugs In From Canada... And Also Banning Such Sites From The Internet

from the confused-isn't-he? dept

In the latest bit of evidence that Senator Patrick Leahy, who is the official sponsor of the PROTECT IP Act, doesn't even understand what it is he's proposing, the folks over at DemandProgress are pointing out a massive contradiction in two separate bills that Leahy has introduced. First, of course, we have the PROTECT IP Act, which pharmacies like Eli Lilly are cheering on because they know that it can be used to block access to foreign online pharmacies (mainly in Canada) that Americans frequently use for parallel import or re-importation of drugs at more reasonable prices. Of course, Eli Lilly won't come out and say that directly, but the fact that they hype up the key point that this bill will encourage search engines and others to take "voluntary action" makes it pretty clear that this is what they likely mean.

No one denies that actual fake drugs are a real danger. But too many in both the pharma industry and among our politicians never separate out fake (and often dangerous) drugs from either generics or parallel import drugs that are just as effective, but often much, much cheaper. While government officials will insist up and down that their only concern is with the actual fake drugs, what's noticeably missing from this bit of legislation is anything that makes that point clear -- meaning that search engines and others who don't necessarily understand the difference may feel pressured to block those legit online pharmacies. Which, of course, would make the big pharma firms like Eli Lilly quite happy.

So what's the contradiction? Well, at the same time that Leahy is sponsoring the PROTECT IP Act, he's also a co-sponsor of the Pharmaceutical Market Access and Drug Safety Act which is designed to expand the ability of Americans to import cheaper drugs from elsewhere. Yup, so just as he's sponsoring a bill to allow more people to get cheaper drugs from Canada, he's also sponsoring a bill that will make that much, much harder.

Filed Under: canada, drugs, parallel import, patrick leahy, protect ip, reimportation