Washington, DC: The House of Representatives last week voted to pass two separate proposals that were introduced or cosponsored by Congressman Ron Paul. Both measures were part of a final version of the Department of Labor/Department of Health and Human Services appropriations bill for 2002.

Paul has been a vocal opponent of federal medical ID numbers since the idea first was proposed by the Clinton administration. Accordingly, Paul fought to include language in the Labor/HHS bill that prohibits federal funding for the implementation of such a program.

“The federal government has no business tracking your medical history throughout your life”, Paul stated. “As a physician, I know that patients will be reluctant to disclose sensitive problems if they know their medical file will be placed in a federal database. Medical privacy is absolutely essential to effective and humane patient care. The federal government needs to stay out of the business of snooping through private medical records.”

Paul also has been a strong critic of taxpayer subsidies for pharmaceutical companies. “Too many giant drug companies are using federal dollars to develop new drugs via the taxpayer funded National Institutes of Health,” Paul continued. “Lengthy exclusive patent rights for drugs developed at taxpayer expense should not be granted to companies that charge outrageous prices.” Paul worked with Congressman Bernie Sanders of Vermont to attach an amendment to the Labor/HHS bill that prohibits NIH from granting patent licenses to companies that overcharge for drugs developed at taxpayer expense.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 16th, 2001 at 3:14 am and is filed under Press Releases. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.