NEWS RELEASE
Committee on Energy and Commerce Democrats
Congressman John D. Dingell, Ranking Member

GAO Confirms Illegal Drug Importation
Remains Major Problem

Washington, D.C. -- Congressman John D. Dingell (D-MI), Ranking Member of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, and Senator Norman Coleman (R-MN), Chairman of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, today released a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report that confirms the Administration has made little progress enforcing prohibitions on the importation of prescription drugs sold illegally over the Internet.

GAO reported that, according to Food and Drug Administration and Customs and Border Protection officials, the volume of prescription drugs imported into the United States is substantial and increasing, and the safety of drugs purchased from foreign sources outside the U.S. regulatory system cannot be assured.

“For five years we have asked this Administration to address the specific problems described in this report and for five years they have come back empty handed,” said Dingell. “Unfortunately, this report only confirms the continuing degradation of the regulated drug system we worked so hard to create. While rogue websites continue to send their drugs into the U.S. with impunity, the agencies most responsible for stopping this chaos are completely out of ideas.”

“This report continues to underscore the potential risks of buying drugs online,” added Dingell. “People have no way of knowing whether these drugs are real or fake. For example, governments are now stockpiling the drug Tamiflu, in case of an Avian flu pandemic, and while it is in short supply for governments, it is appearing all over the Internet. There may be a rude awakening for some individuals who illegally purchase their Tamiflu from an unregulated website when their drugs turn out to be fake and do not provide any benefit whatsoever.”

“Not only are individuals taking matters into their own hands by purchasing drugs from foreign websites, but local governments are even exploring ways to do the same,” noted Dingell. “This is a clear violation of federal law, yet people are willing to take a risk because they are desperate for cheaper medicines. If this fact does not sound an alarm to the Administration that something is desperately wrong with how we deliver affordable medicines to our citizens, then apparently nothing will.”

Among GAO’s key findings:

• Each year, millions of shipments of drugs flow into the United States from unregulated sources.
• Key agencies responsible for preventing this flow of unregulated drugs continue to remain disorganized and lack any credible plan for stopping it.
• The safety of prescription drug imports is not assured.
• Packages containing prescription drugs often bypass government inspection at the carrier facilities because of gaps in the inspection process.
• Agencies still fail to keep adequate statistics on the volume and type of drugs entering the United States so that they can effectively measure their progress in combating rogue websites.
• Highly addictive controlled substances are widely available via the Internet.

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