Clinton to Suggest Ways to Fix Law on Reimporting Drugs

President Clinton said Wednesday that he plans to send Congress suggestions next week on how to fix a law aimed at cutting prescription drug prices by allowing them to be reimported from abroad.

“What we’d like to see is a law that protects safety that will lower consumer prices,” said Clinton, a day after Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala blocked the law’s implementation.

The drug reimportation law would let drugstores and medical distributors buy U.S.-made, Food and Drug Administration-approved drugs in certain countries where they sell more cheaply, and then resell them here.

But Shalala wrote Clinton on Tuesday that she would not implement the law because of “serious flaws and loopholes” that “make it impossible for me to demonstrate that it is safe and cost effective.”

Clinton supported her decision.