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Authorizing the Committee on Public Health and Human Services to hold hearings to investigate the desirability and feasibility of providing access to affordable prescription drugs from Canada and other industrialized countries to active and retired City employees and to residents of Philadelphia through the City’s district health centers; and further authorizing the Committee in furtherance of such investigation to issue subpoenas as may be necessary to compel the attendance of witnesses and the production of documents to the full extent authorized under Section 2-401 of the Home Rule Charter.
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WHEREAS, Price controls imposed by the Canadian health care system result in prices for prescription drugs as much as 80 percent lower than the identical drugs sold in the United States. The dramatic cost savings drive over 1 million Americans each year to purchase prescription drugs from Canadian pharmacies, through the mail or over the Internet, in violation of federal laws that restrict access to foreign pharmaceuticals; and
WHEREAS, A recent USA TODAY/CNN/Gallup poll indicated that 71 percent of Americans support having access to prescription drugs from Canada and other countries; and
WHEREAS, Last year, the City spent $11 million on prescription drugs; and
WHEREAS, The states of Illinois, Massachusetts, Oklahoma, West Virginia, Alabama, North Carolina, Vermont, Ohio, Delaware, Louisiana, Michigan, Wisconsin, New Hampshire, Iowa and Minnesota are currently considering ways to bring Canadian prescription drugs into their states and make them available to their residents, even though the importation of these pharmaceuticals is illegal; and
WHEREAS, Springfield, Massachusetts has led the movement to provide legal access to Canadian drugs since it became the first city in the country to begin reimbursing city employees for prescription drugs purchased from Canada last July. Springfield estimates that its 1000 municipal employees have saved $750,000 so far on their prescription drug costs; and
WHEREAS, The city of Boston and the State of New Hampshire announced in December 2003 that they will begin pilot projects to buy prescription drugs from Canada. Boston Mayor Thomas Menino estimates that current and retired city employees will save $1 million a year and New Hampshire projects cost savings of $12.6 million a year from the purchase of Canadian pharmaceuticals for the state’s prison inmates and Medicaid recipients. The State of Illinois is projecting combined savings of as much as $91 million when it provides access to Canadian drugs to its 230,000 state employees and retirees; and
WHEREAS, The federal Food and Drug Administration (“FDA”) and representatives of the U.S. pharmaceutical industry cite concerns over the safety of Canadian pharmaceuticals as grounds for their opposition to allowing Americans access to lower-priced Canadian prescription drugs; and
WHEREAS, In a recent interview with the Times Union of Albany, New York, the FDA’s director of pharmacy affairs, was unable to name a single American who has been injured or killed by drugs bought from licensed Canadian pharmacies; and
WHEREAS, A recent report by the Congressional Research Service supports the safety of drugs from Canada, finding that medications manufactured and distributed in Canada meet or surpass the quality control guidelines set by the FDA; now therefore
RESOLVED, BY THE COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF PHILADELPHIA, That the Committee on Public Health and Human Services is authorized to hold hearings to investigate the desirability and feasibility of providing access to affordable prescription drugs from Canada to active and retired City employees and to residents of Philadelphia through the City’s district health centers.
FURTHER RESOLVED, That the Committee on Public Health and Human Services is authorized to issue subpoenas as may be necessary to compel the attendance of witnesses and the production of documents to the full extent authorized under Section 2-401 of the Home Rule Charter.
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