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As you all know, I have a new Hard Drive, and I have spent most of the week restoring from backup, all my files. Well, my computer got smart with me this morning and told me to delete some files because I was getting short on Memory in MS Word. I hate it when a computer is smarter than I am!!! Anyway, I'm in the process of reading 398 files I have saved and will transfer what I want to keep to a CD with my CD/RW, and delete them from MS Word, to keep it from talking back to me! but I came across this information, and thought since we have been discussing drug cost, that you might like to read it. Maybe Murray, who has a divine gift for finding information , could find out what happened to this amendment, Please!! just me, Marjorie ************************************************************************************ Burns Backs Legislation to Lower Drug CostsFor immediate release: July 19, 2000 Burns Backs Legislation to Lower Drug Costs Amendment Requires Health Secretary to Certify Safety, Lower Prices WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Montana Senator Conrad Burns today backed legislation designed to make prescription drugs less expensive by giving community pharmacies and distributors the ability to buy medicine in foreign countries so long as they meet strict government safety requirements. "We need to do what we can to lower the price of medicine in America," Burns said, "and if the Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) says we can do it safely, allowing foreign purchases might help." Burns said allowing importation of FDA-approved medicine is only one part of his plan to make prescription drugs more affordable and more available for all Montanans, but especially for senior citizens. Some prescription drugs cost substantially less in Canada and Mexico than they do in the United States. Under a law passed in 1988, only a drug manufacturer can "reimport" medicine form foreign countries. Consumer advocates charge the law results in unfair price differences between countries. According to Burns, the Democratic-controlled Congress passed the reimportation ban in 1988 out of concerns for counterfeit drugs and drugs that were improperly stored or handled overseas. Burns said he insisted on strong safety measures as a condition of supporting today's legislation. "The legislation we passed today has iron-clad protections for people who purchase reimported medicine," Burns said, "including a requirement that the Secretary of HHS tells us we can do it safely, and in a way that will lower prices, before we move forward." Burns said he has sponsored other legislation to make medicine more affordable and more available, including a plan to give Medicare recipients access to discount prescription drugs, and also a plan to give tax credits to low and moderate income families to buy health insurance. "Allowing reimportation won't solve the problem of high priced drugs by itself but, so long as we can do it safely and as part of a larger package, it might help," Burns said. The Senate adopted the legislation on a vote of 74 to 21 as an amendment to the annual agricultural appropriations bill. The appropriations bill must still pass the Senate, and differences with the House ironed out, before it can be sent to the president. # # #