Safeguarding Therapeutics Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. GUTHRIE. Madam Speaker, I rise today in support of my bill, the Safeguarding Therapeutics Act.

Last year, I had the opportunity to visit the international mail facility at JFK Airport in New York.

When counterfeit drugs come through the mail facilities, the FDA has the authority to destroy it. However, if that counterfeit drug is attached to a syringe, it therefore constitutes a medical device, and the FDA does not currently have the authority to destroy counterfeit medical devices. Instead, in most cases, they are mailed back to where they came from, where they are repackaged and sent right back to the United States.

After visiting the mail facility, I joined with my colleague, Representative Eliot Engel, to fix this, introducing the Safeguarding Therapeutics Act. This commonsense, bipartisan bill will give the FDA the authority to destroy counterfeit medical devices at entry points into our country. These include items such as combination products, like injections and vaccines. If allowed into the country, these products could end up on the black market and harm American patients.

The Safeguarding Therapeutics Act has become especially important now that the country is facing the COVID-19 pandemic. We have already seen instances of counterfeit COVID-19 tests and products claiming to cure COVID being sent to the United States. Bad actors are marketing tests and treatments that have not been approved by the FDA or the CDC.

We need to give the FDA the ability to destroy these products as they enter the United States. While our Nation continues to grapple with the coronavirus pandemic, the last thing we need is fake COVID-19 tests and products in our market.

Also, in going to the JFK Airport, you are standing there with the personnel, men and women who are wearing the uniform of our country, receiving this mail moving forward. We gave them the authority: If it is a drug, they can destroy it if it is counterfeit; if it is a device, it is an interpretation, but they don't have the authority to move forward.

They even told me that sometimes they open the package, see that it is counterfeit, and they have to return it. They close the package, return it, and they will see the same package come back through the exact way that they taped it.

So we need to give them the authority. It doesn't make sense. It is a commonsense approach.

Eliot Engel and I made this bipartisan. I think every American citizen says that is not the way we want to operate, and particularly in this time and this pandemic, and there are people trying to take advantage of this time and this pandemic.

Madam Speaker, I appreciate bringing this to the floor today. I appreciate the hard work of the Committee on Energy and Commerce.

I thank Representative Engel. I don't think he represents JFK, but he does represent the great city of New York.

Madam Speaker, I look forward to continuing to work with my colleagues on the Committee on Energy and Commerce as they respond to the coronavirus pandemic.

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