KMAX: News of the West

LOS ANGELES (AP) A rolling protest against high drug prices will haul senior citizens from Southern California to Canada to buy pharmaceuticals.

About 25 people were scheduled to depart Los Angeles on Monday aboard the ``Rx Express'' and arrive Wednesday in Vancouver. Elderly passengers from as far south as San Diego were to ride two chartered private cars attached to an Amtrak train.

Protesters plan to take the train to Klamath Falls, Ore., and would likely ride a chartered bus the rest of the way, said Jerry Flanagan of the Santa Monica-based Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights.

Advocates hoped the Rx Express trip would dramatize the soaring cost of prescription drugs and promote a change in federal law to allow Medicare and other programs to buy drugs in bulk to reduce their cost to members.

Prescription drug imports are banned by the federal government unless the secretary of Health and Human Services certifies their safety, which has not been done. The Food and Drug Administration has opposed prescription drug imports because it says it cannot guarantee the drugs' safety.

There has been a groundswell of demand by Americans, however, because of skyrocketing drug costs. Certain pharmaceuticals cost a fourth as much in Canada as they do if purchased in the United States due to government price controls.

For instance, a three-month supply of the cholesterol-lowering drug Lipitor costs $214 in the United States and $162 in Canada.

President Bush on Aug. 18 said pressure is building in Congress to allow Canadian drug imports but it still is unclear whether the drugs would be safe.

People on both sides of the issue say there is growing, bipartisan support in the House and Senate to make it legal for drugs to be imported, but Republican leaders so far this year have not allowed a vote.

Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry has said he favors allowing the federal government to negotiate better drug prices through Medicare and imported drugs.