If the FDA can't grab its back end with both hands tied behind its back, I believe the same can be said for McCain as the subject relates to drug reimportation and drug safety and drug costs.  This is based upon comments attributed to him in a news column in today's Townhall.com regarding the subject.  The link to that column follows: 

http://www.townhall.com/news/politics-elections/2007/11/17/mccain_calls_for_drug_reimportation

Perhaps not enough credit is not being given to Mr. McCain.  Certainly, based upon the column to which this blog entry relates, it would appear that Mr. McCain is almost completely uninformed. 

It is unknown to me whether McCain voted for the MMA (the Medicare Modernization Act) which had tagging along with it the Medicare Prescription Drug Plan (PDP).  My memory is that he did not vote for it, which is to his credit.  The MMA and the PDPs are giant steps toward the type of health care systems typified in Canada. 

The drug companies and the drug insurance companies nearly wet themselves with joy at that signing.  They were in my opinion happier than hogs in mud. 

It is not supposed that anyone remembers that day in December when Bush signed the MMA into law.  I remember it, and it nearly sickens me every time I think of it.  Gathered around Bush were nice old gray-haired ladies and gentlemen who were seemingly pleased as punch itself to see that bill get signed.  My understanding is that those gray-haired, simpering bunch were, if not in cahoots, then joined at the hip or mind or some appendage or other with none other than AARP, which itself it connected at the hip or some kind of an appendage with companies providing insurance for -- guess what! -- prescription drugs.  Who would have thunk it? 

As stated in a fast comment to the column mentioned above, made with steam coming out my ears, drugs are manufactured all over the world, end up here in the U.S.A., and people like me are taking them every day.  The drugs that are actually manufactured here in the U.S. are few and far between. 

Recently the FDA had a public meeting dedicated to the discussion of the safety of imported drugs.  My surprise first was that they are only now getting around to it.  Perhaps it never occurred to them until people began getting riled up when their pets were dying as a result of ingesting pet food manufactured in China. 

The last time I did a little rummaging around on a few Internet Web sites, there were about 75 Chinese companies that were just dying (my description, of course) to get into the business of manufacturing our drugs.  In my own estimation, if China cannot manage to produce pet food without killing off somebody's pets, why in the name of common sense would anyone want to trust their prescription drugs manufactured there?

The FDA "invited" comments from the public either through the Internet or by mail, and I took them up on it.  I'm sure they read every word.  As set out in an earlier blog entry, I would like a law whereby every container of any prescription drug sold by American pharmacies or mail order companies would be required to list the country of manufacture of the drug, along with the country or countries of origin of every ingredient in that drug.  I would like to be informed if I am about to ingest some drug made in China, or whether any portion thereof has an origin in China. 

Knowledge is power.  If I were offered a drug from my local drugstore, and the container for that drug listed China as place of origin, I could make a decision to say, No, thank you.  Or not. 
It is a travesty for American citizens to be kept in the dark regarding the origins of their prescription drugs. 

Mr. McCain needs to plunge head-first into the subject of "reimportation of drugs" before he talks very much about it. 

The cost of drugs borne by United States citizens benefits more entities and countries than imaginable (remembering that politicians are "entities").  Americans' taxes fund the National Institutes of Health.  Drug companies benefit from the research performed at the NIH.  Drug companies sell their products to other countries at rock-bottom prices.  In other words, we are subsidizing the drugs for other countries. 

Drug companies are entitled to profits, of course, but they are not entitled, in my opinion, and as expressed by someone else in the past, to profiteering. 

Drug companies spend a lot of money on advertising.  Someone has to pay for it.  Want to guess who?  American taxpayers; American purchasers. 

Drug companies spend a lot of money on research and development.  Someone has to pay for it.  Want to guess who?  American taxpayers; American purchasers. 

Drug companies spend a lot of money on drug samples and pens and writing tablets and doctors' examining table covers and facial tissue and who even knows what all.  Who pays for those samples?  Just guess. 

Drug companies are provided tax write-offs that would, in the words of Glenn Beck, make blood start shooting out of your eyes.  Who benefits from those write-offs?  Americans?  When pigs fly. 

As said above, drug companies are entitled to profits, just as any other American company is.  We do have a free enterprise system; we have a (sort of) competitive system.  When it comes to the purchase of prescription drugs, however, Americans are left swaying in the wind. 

As far as the Prescription Drug Plans are concerned, they are designed to obfuscate and confuse.  Their success at this is blinding.

This is a subject not capable of being covered in a blog entry.  However, before all the steam escaped from my ears, and before all the blood shot out of my eyes, some of it needed to be covered.

Anyone interested in an informative book on some of these subjects can read Dr. Marcia Angell's book "The Truth About The Drug Companies - How They Deceive You and What To Do About It."  Talk about steam coming out your ears. 

Back to McCain:  I like him; I would like to vote for him.  However, his views on illegal aliens and now, apparently, drug prices and drug reimportation, completely turn me off.