Since No One Mentioned It

Big PHARMA won their war against the governments bid to import drugs at a lower cost:

"WASHINGTON - In a triumph for the pharmaceutical industry, the Senate on Monday killed a drive to allow consumers to buy prescription drugs from abroad at a significant savings over domestic prices.


"On a 49-40 vote, the Senate required the administration to certify the safety and effectiveness of imported drugs before they can be imported, a requirement that officials have said they cannot meet."

Any one watch the Sunday morning talk shows and remembers those PHARMA cares commercials? Well that's what this is all about. Norman Horowitz has his take here, and I'm personally dismayed, not so much because it passed but because there seemed to be no dialogue in Congress or the media about this issue. I understand there's the bigger issues of Iraq, the election and the Gonzalez scandal, but this bill would have lowered the costs on 'script drugs for hundreds of thousands of Americans who can't afford life-saving medicines. And the argument that Pharma made was so weak as to be laughable. This was definitely a loss for the American public.

PS: Does anyone know the actual number of the bill? I'd like to look on THOMAS for the senate's voting record.