Senate Aging Committee Chairman Rick Scott and Ranking Member Kirsten Gillibrand will hold a hearing on June 3 to address the issue of unsafe foreign drugs and contaminated imports. The hearing, titled “Poisoned Pills: The Human Cost of Dangerous Foreign Drugs,” aims to highlight the human cost associated with these medications and discuss calls for increased transparency and consistent quality in America’s drug supply chain.
The hearing will feature testimony from Lisa Salberg, Founder and CEO of the Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy Association; Adam Clark-Joseph, PhD, Chief Analytics Officer and Co-Founder of Valisure; Suzanne de la Monte, MD, MPH, Professor and Vice Chair of Pathology & Laboratory Medicine at Alpert Medical School of Brown University; and Dinesh Thakur, Public Health Activist. It is scheduled for 3:30 p.m. Eastern Time in room SH-216 of the Hart Senate Office Building.
Scott and Gillibrand have said that there is a need for greater oversight by federal agencies such as the Food and Drug Administration to ensure safety standards are met for imported pharmaceuticals. They have also called for more transparency regarding how these drugs enter the U.S. market.
The Senate Aging Committee provides resources to protect older Americans from fraud and financial exploitation via tools like a fraud hotline, according to the official website. The committee maintains offices in both the Dirksen Senate Office Building for the majority party members and Hart Senate Office Building for minority members, according to its official website.
According to its official website, Rick Scott serves as chair while Kirsten Gillibrand is ranking member. The committee focuses on examining issues affecting older Americans—including Social Security, Medicare, long-term care—and conducts hearings such as this one while issuing reports on related topics.