US drug importation report delayed, Thompson says

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The Bush administration is not ready to release a highly anticipated report on the importation of prescription drugs that was due Wednesday, Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson said.

A Medicare law signed by President Bush a year ago required the Department of Health and Human Services to study how American consumers could buy cheaper medicines safely from Canada and some other countries.

Lawmakers from both political parties support importation, but the Bush administration has argued the practice is risky.

Thompson told reporters on Wednesday he had not yet received the report from a task force headed by Surgeon General Richard Carmona. Thompson said he would be traveling until Tuesday and would not make the report public until he had a chance to review it.

Seven lawmakers who support importation issued a statement saying they wondered if the delay meant the administration was reevaluating its previous opposition.

“Regardless of the commission’s report, the American people are looking to Congress to pass importation legislation,” said the statement from Minnesota Republican Rep. Gil Gutknecht, Illinois Democrat Rep. Rahm Emanuel and others.

Gutknecht and others said the health department’s decision on Tuesday to import flu vaccine made by GlaxoSmithKline Plc in Germany contradicted arguments that buying medicines made in other countries was unsafe.

“I don’t think you can draw that conclusion,” Thompson said, noting the FDA inspected the German plant and determined the vaccine doses made there were safe.

“It is completely different than having individuals just purchase drugs from a foreign country that are not approved by the FDA,” he said.

The American Medical Association earlier this week came out in support of importation if certain conditions were met, such as limiting the practice to wholesalers and pharmacies.

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