While a recent column in the Wall Street Journal highlighted the fact that all state prescription drug importation programs are failures, some states are still considering risky importation bills that could endanger patient health. Why are all the state importation programs failures? Read below.

State Importation Program Failures:
The Wall Street Journal

The Wall Street Journal highlighted the failures of state importation programs in a Potomac Watch column published May 11, 2007. The Wall Street Journal revealed the following facts about the importation programs:

• “Today, most state programs are on life support, while some have closed completely. Never mind all Washington’s hifalutin arguments about intellectual property, free trade and safety; the overwhelming majority of Americans appear to have little use for import programs that offer few drugs at long wait times, under suspect safety conditions and with minimal savings.”

• Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich introduced his I-Save-Rx program in 2004 declaring at the time that, “the nearly 13 million people who live in Illinois and the more than five million people who live in Wisconsin will have the opportunity to save hundreds – and in some cases thousands – of dollars each year on the high cost of their medicines.”

• Governor Blagojevich spent nearly $1 million in taxpayer funds to develop the program, including some 500 state workers from two dozen agencies who spent 5,600 hours working on it. Not surprisingly, a report by Illinois Auditor General William Holland found that, “Over 19 months of operation, a grand total of 3,689 Illinois residents had used the program, which equals approximately 0.02 percent of the population.” Wisconsin had 321 people use the program; Kansas 267; Missouri 460; and Vermont 217.

• A few years ago, Portland, Maine set up a Canada import program that politicians at the time said would “save its thousands of city employees and their dependents a bundle on drugs.” Three years after the program began it has only attracted 350 participants.• Maine Governor John Baldacci worked with the Penobscot Indian Nation to come up with a plan to build a distribution center to import Canadian drugs for about 350,000 uninsured and underinsured Mainers. In February, the center was closed due to low participation of only 3,000 Medicaid recipients.

• Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty started Minnesota RxConnect in 2003 saying at the time that it would serve some 700,000 people. But according to recent statistics, Minnesota RxConnect in April only filled 138 prescriptions.

FDA Letters Regarding State Importation Programs

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has sent numerous letters warning local and state officials of the safety concerns it has with state importation proposals. In fact, the FDA recently sent a letter to officials in Duluth, Minnesota warning them that, "Imported drug shipments under Duluth’s plan would most likely violate Federal law ... It is therefore likely that such packages will be detained by U.S. Custom and Border Protection and FDA officials when offered for import." Read more here.