Latest Pawlenty Rx plan under fire

03/19/2005

Warren Wolfe, Star Tribune
March 19, 2005

Gov. Tim Pawlenty’s decision to offer Minnesotans access to low-cost prescriptions from Europe is “an ill-considered expansion of an already bad idea,” a top federal regulator said Friday.

“The governor is making a bad situation worse,” said William Hubbard, associate commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration. “Now you’ll have even less idea of where your drugs are coming from.”

The Minnesota RxConnect program, which helps Minnesotans order drugs from four Canadian pharmacies, will be expanded within two months to include two pharmacies in Great Britain, Pawlenty said Friday.

He said he decided to add the British pharmacies because of threats to the Canadian ones. Canadian officials are considering new rules that could shut down the firms, and drugmakers are trying to cut off their supplies. Government price controls keep drugs far cheaper in Canada and Europe.

“We may very well need [the British firms] if the drug companies succeed in suffocating supplies to Canada,” Pawlenty said on his weekly radio show.

It is illegal to import drugs, although federal officials allow individuals to buy prescriptions abroad for their own use.

Hubbard has criticized the Minnesota program since it began 13 months ago. He said the FDA cannot guarantee the safety of imported drugs and noted that the state “might be abetting the illegal importation of drugs.”

After a half dozen FDA contacts with Pawlenty, “I don’t think he’s listening,” Hubbard said. “I doubt there’s any point in writing him again.”

State Human Services Commissioner Kevin Goodno said Friday that British regulation of pharmacies is “as safe if not safer” than U.S. oversight.

Minnesotans will be able to get British prescriptions by placing orders with two Canadian pharmacies in the RxConnect program that already use the British firms.