Today the Senate approved a poison pill amendment to the bill that would legalize lower-priced prescription-drug imports. The amendment requires the secretary of HHS to certify that drug imports would pose no safety risk to American consumers, Mike Leavitt has already said he won't do that effectively killing the bill.
The original bill by Sen. Dorgan already had plenty of safeguards including allowing only drugs manufactured in FDA-approved facilities to be imported. The poison pill is an obvious attempt by big pharma to derail the bill, and they have won.
We need to remember the democrats that voted for this in the upcoming elections. There is no legitimate excuse for blocking this bill except to enrich the pharmaceutical's already overflowing coffers, and to continue the flow of pharma's contributions into these senators campaigns.
The list of Democratic senators that are owned by big-pharma after the break.
Democratic senators that voted for poison pill:
Baucus (D-MT)
Bayh (D-IN)
Cantwell (D-WA)
Carper (D-DE)
Kennedy (D-MA)
Kerry (D-MA)
Landrieu (D-LA)
Lautenberg (D-NJ)
Lieberman (ID-CT)
Lincoln (D-AR)
Menendez (D-NJ)
Mikulski (D-MD)
Murray (D-WA)
Nelson (D-NE)
Rockefeller (D-WV)
Salazar (D-CO)