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After enduring numerous amendments, debates and public scrutiny, Senate bill S.1082 is headed for a likely vote on Wednesday, May 9th. The bill at one point contained an approved amendment that would have ended Big Pharma's monopoly over drug prices in the United States and saved consumers and businesses tens of billions of dollars by allowing them to import medications from other countries, but that provision was summarily nullified by an organized counterattack via Big Pharma-funded Democrats and Republicans who sold out American consumers to the profit interests of drug companies.
The present concern is that the bill will pass with ambiguous language that could allow its regulatory powers to threaten free access to dietary supplements and functional foods. While the bill's supporters claim there is no such language contained in the bill that would subject foods and supplements to new FDA regulations, they nonetheless refuse to support the food and supplement protection amendments authored by Jonathan Emord (a high-profile attorney specializing in FDA regulatory law) and generally supported by the health freedom movement.
While S.1082 contains some useful provisions that limit advertising for new drugs, it could also ultimately be misused to threaten consumer health freedoms. Furthermore, the bill deepens the financial ties between Big Pharma and the FDA while doing nothing of substance to end corruption at the FDA or to halt Big Pharma's monopolistic trade practices in the United States. Thus, the bill is widely viewed by most people in the health freedom movement as a net loss to consumer safety, which is why grassroots opposition to S.1082 has steadily grown.
What's clear from the Senate's action on the bill is that consumers are not in any meaningful way represented by lawmakers. Rather than fighting to protect consumers' health and hard-earned dollars, the majority of senators have voted in accordance with the wishes of their corporate sponsors -- the drug companies themselves. Thus, the imminent passage of S.1082 is viewed by many as yet one more Senate sellout of the American public to the financial interests of powerful pharmaceutical companies.
Byron Richards, author of Fight For Your Health! The FDA's betrayal of America, has been closely monitoring events relevant to S.1082. NaturalNews has published his updates as they are made available. Here's the latest update from Richards based on events on the U.S. Senate floor from May 7th and May 8th.
S.1082 update from Byron RichardsThe Senate finished debate Tuesday on S.1082. Dorgan offered a new Amendment to add true anti-counterfeit technology to the bill. Enzi and Dorgan debated -- with Dorgan tearing him to pieces (although I doubt it will matter).
Also, Sherrod Brown discussed his amendment to prevent Big Pharma from gaming a citizen's petition system that Big Pharma uses to delay generic drug competition (some aspect of this may make it into the legislation). Durbin offered an amendment for meaningful changes to FDA advisory panels. This is a really good amendment and is unlikely to go anywhere.
Thus, Kennedy and Enzi are stonewalling all meaningful change to protect Big Pharma. This bill looks like it's going to pass. Even people like Dorgan say they will support it as they feel, despite its shortcomings, it is better than the current state of affairs. So it is definitely a matter of what amendments get added to it that will make a difference.
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Tuesday, May 08, 2007
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