Is the Senator Deliberately Misleading?

Senator Schumer is running his first re-election advertisement on cable TV stations, and when I caught a glimpse of it I wondered if he and Senator Kerry are both confused about the process of legislation.

Mr. Schumer's ad notes that the Senate passed his bill on generic drugs. In the last debate, Mr. Kerry rebuffed President Bush's assertion about his legislative record by saying 56 of his bills were passed. Perhaps this is what is known as nuance, but bills are not law until they pass the Senate and the House and are then signed by the president. Mr. Schumer's ad, entitled "Hard Work," seems to imply that the generic bill is a done deal, and one has to wonder if he is deliberately misleading the voters. The New York senator may very well be a hard worker, but at what?

According to his Republican opponent, Assemblyman Howard Mills, Mr. Schumer's record of legislation in the Senate is anemic. Only 12 of the bills he sponsored on his own have become law. Ten involved naming post offices, a courthouse, and a cemetery. The remaining two authorized studies in Niagara Falls and Saratoga Springs.

Whether any of Mr. Schumer's rivals in the Senate race can do any better is up to the voters to decide, by a careful examination of the challengers' qualifications and records.

But it's no surprise that in the ad Mr. Schumer is targeting the concerns of senior citizens, who are the voters most concerned with the cost and supplies of pharmaceuticals.

The Kerry campaign has charged that the Bush administration is responsible for the current shortage of flu vaccine. Actually, the responsibility, surprisingly, goes back to 1994, when a Democratic-controlled Congress, persuaded by First Lady Hillary Clinton, enacted the vaccine-buying program, which placed a cap on the price that American vaccine manufacturers could charge. The lowered profit margin, along with the threat of lawsuits for any bad side effects, forced many companies to cease manufacturing the vaccine. We were then forced to import vaccines from Great Britain. Beware the trial lawyers!

Now, if one has been indoctrinated into believing all corporations are essentially corrupt, then one might find it sinister that the current administration appears to be protecting the interests of the drug manufacturers over the health of its citizens. Things are not that simple, especially when it comes to the issue of importing cheaper drugs from Canada.

It is true that American manufacturers charge higher prices for drugs here and discount the drugs exported to Canada. That is because the Canadian government places caps on the prices. If Congress allows Americans to import drugs from Canada, we might see the same debacle that caused the current flu vaccine shortage.

Drug companies spend billions of dollars on research and development of innovative drugs. Why should they allow Canada to be their wholesale distributor? More than likely, they would move to limit the volume of drugs exported to Canada. Then Canadians would be forced to purchase their drugs from abroad, where the manufacturers are not so stringently regulated, and where there are no guarantees on safety. The imported drugs might be diluted or contaminated.

Of course, Congress could decide to place caps on drug prices here, but that would effectively shut down the drug industry, or at least shut down research to develop the innovative drugs of the future.

The Schumer-McCain generic-drug bill S.812 passed the Senate in 2002. Its purpose is to allow less expensive generic drugs to be made available earlier in pharmacies. That sounds like a great idea for everyone except the pharmaceutical companies. Why should you care?

There are brand-name drugs that are very expensive because the manufacturer spends billions on research and testing. It has to wait several years, due to the regulations of the Food and Drug Administration, before it can make those drugs available to the public. The prices remain high until the manufacturer can recoup its costs, allowing it to continue to develop new products. After a certain time the drugs may be re-patented and sold as a cheaper, generic drug.

Mr. Schumer wants all loopholes removed so that generic drugs can be made available sooner. Given the absence of a mechanism to recoup its costs, why should any pharmaceutical company spend all that time and money to develop innovative drugs? The senior citizens today may get cheaper drugs, but their grandchildren may pay the price in life-saving drugs that are never developed.

Those are the questions that Mr. Schumer should have considered before introducing the bill. But perhaps he's been kept too busy keeping judges with religious convictions, such as Miguel Estrada, off the federal bench.