[Ip-health] Vermont sues FDA to get Canadian drugs

[Kathryn Garforth]

>From the Montreal Gazette
http://www.canada.com/montreal/montrealgazette/news/story.html?id=3Dc6d9cb9=
0-3a79-4f2e-8e10-7a1def36dff0

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Vermont sues FDA to get Canadian drugs
=A0
AP


Saturday, August 21, 2004


Vermont has filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Food and Drug
Administration, charging the agency's refusal of the state's petition to
import cheaper prescription drugs from Canada was "arbitrary and
capricious and otherwise unreasonable."

By filing the suit, Vermont has become the first state to take on the
U.S. government's stance against so-called drug-reimportation schemes.

In such arrangements, state and local governments set up mechanisms by
which people can buy name-brand prescriptions from Canadian pharmacies
at prices that are often 40 per cent less than they are in the United
States.

"Vermont will not sit back and watch as the cost of health insurance and
prescription drugs continues to rise," Governor James Douglas said in a
statement. "Nor are we content to simply ignore the law."

Douglas petitioned the FDA for permission to establish a reimportation
program for the state's more than 20,000 employees, retirees and their
families. The FDA denied the petition earlier this month and state
leaders said in response they would sue.

Meanwhile, Rx Depot, an Oklahoma firm that once helped Americans buy
cheaper prescription drugs from Canada, and was shut last November by a
U.S. federal judge, agreed to sign a consent decree to permanently cease
facilitating drug imports, the FDA said.

=A9=A0The Gazette (Montreal) 2004