MEMBERS OF CONGRESS SLAM PRESCRIPTION DRUG PROFITS

WASHINGTON - Calling the prescription drug industry's
profits ``obscene,'' a group of House members and Senators urged their
colleagues to act this year to control the price of drugs.

``People are dying. People are getting sick because they can't afford
their drugs,'' said Rep. Bernard Sanders, I-Vt. Sanders has introduced
legislation that would allow US firms to ``reimport'' drugs from
Canada and other countries at lower prices, who could then pass the
discounts on to consumers.

The group displayed a series of charts, drawn from information
published last month in Fortune Magazine's annual compilation of the
top 500 companies, noting that the drug industry is by several
measures the nation's most profitable. Indeed, noted Fortune editors
in the issue, ``Whether you gauge profitability by median return on
revenues, assets, or equity, pharmaceuticals had a Viagra kind of year.''

According to Fortune, the top seven drug companies' profits topped
those of the top seven car companies, the top seven oil companies, the
top seven airline companies, and the top seven media companies. The
pharmaceutical company Merck alone, said Sanders, had profits higher
than those of all the construction and railroad companies in the
Fortune 500 combined.

The numbers, the members noted, also show that the industry makes far
more in profits than it spends on research and development--despite
arguments that it plows most of its revenues back into finding new
drugs.

``We have an industry here that makes exorbitant profit off the
sickness, illness and misery of people. That's obscene,'' said Sen.
Paul Wellstone, D-Minn., who has introduced his own legislation to
limit prescription drug prices.

Despite all the attention the issue is getting on Capitol Hill, the
members said, they remain worried about whether Congress will really
address the issue this year. ``This Congress is dithering,'' said Rep.
Brian Baird, D-Wash. ``It is sucking up to the prescription drug
companies, and it is not living up to its responsibilities to the
American people.''

The members also called a ``mistake'' plans by House and Senate
Democrats to fashion a unified prescription drug plan that would
address the issue of coverage under Medicare of outpatient drugs, but
not prices. Said Wellstone, ``if you just expand the benefit and then
say to the prescription drug industry, 'you fill in the blank check,'
it's going to be a nightmare.''