In Senate, Stiff Resistance to a Drug-Import Bill

Despite the House’s surprisingly easy passage early Friday of a bill to let U.S. consumers buy lower-cost prescription drugs from other countries, the measure’s opponents -- including the Bush administration -- seem to have built a solid bipartisan wall in the Senate to stop it.

The House’s 243-186 vote for the drug-import bill, which came hours before the chamber adjourned for its summer break, was still a sharp setback for the administration and the pharmaceutical industry.

In a sign of growing public outrage about the higher prices for many brand-name medications in the United States compared with other countries, 87 Republicans deserted their party leadership to join with 155 Democrats and the one House independent to pass the bill.

It would allow individuals, pharmacists and drug wholesalers in the United States to import certain prescription drugs from licensed facilities in several industrialized nations, including Canada, members of the European Union, Australia, Israel, New Zealand and South Africa.

A spokesman for Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.), who opposed the bill, acknowledged that lawmakers had sent a loud message. “The will of the House said to the pharmaceutical companies: ‘We need more price fairness,’ ” said the spokesman, John Feehery.

But the bill’s opponents delivered a strong blow themselves just before the House vote: a statement signed by 53 Democratic and Republican senators opposing any measure that would weaken the power of federal officials to block drug imports because of safety concerns.

“We do not believe it would be prudent to remove these vital safeguards,” the senators wrote in an open letter to lawmakers negotiating a Medicare prescription-drug bill.

Neither of California’s two senators -- Democrats Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein -- signed the letter. But the signatories included such ideological opposites as Sens. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) and Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah), indicating the depth of Senate concern about the safety of drug imports.

The letter means that barring a reversal of opinion, the House bill may not even surface in the Senate.

Administration officials have made clear their opposition to the bill. In a sharply worded letter to lawmakers this week, Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Mark B. McClellan said the measure would open “a wide channel for large volumes of unapproved drugs and other products to enter the United States that are potentially injurious to public health and pose a threat to the security of our nation’s drug supply.”

Last month, McClellan had also voiced concern about a Senate-approved amendment to a Medicare reform bill that would allow a one-year trial of drug imports from Canada. But the Senate provision, unlike the House bill, would allow top administration health officials to block the program if they cannot certify that the imports are safe.

In the House vote, five California Republicans supported the drug-import bill: Reps. Mary Bono of Palm Springs, Duncan Hunter of El Cajon, Howard P. “Buck” McKeon of Santa Clarita, Dana Rohrabacher of Huntington Beach and Edward R. Royce of Fullerton. The delegation’s other 15 Republicans opposed it.

The vote among California’s 33 House Democrats reflected the overall split in the chamber. Thirteen voted against the bill: Reps. Howard L. Berman of North Hollywood, Calvin M. Dooley of Hanford, Anna G. Eshoo of Atherton, Sam Farr of Carmel, Michael M. Honda of San Jose, Zoe Lofgren of San Jose, Robert T. Matsui of Sacramento, Juanita Millender-McDonald of Carson, Loretta Sanchez of Anaheim, Brad Sherman of Sherman Oaks, Ellen O. Tauscher of Pleasanton, Mike Thompson of St. Helena and Henry A. Waxman of Los Angeles. The other 20 Democrats supported the bill.

While the House began its summer recess late Friday, the Senate is in session for another week.