WBRZ - Baton Rouge

Congress is poised to pass a bill to beef up the safety of U.S. prescription drugs but without a tracking system that public health advocates say is critical to weeding out counterfeits. The House and Senate agreed late Monday to legislation that helps supplement the FDA's budget after previously passing separate versions of the bill. But lawmakers dropped a provision to create a national network for tracking drug shipments and preventing counterfeit and stolen drugs from entering the supply chain. Pharmaceutical companies and regulators have argued over cost and size of the network for more than a decade and Congress couldn't get them to reach a compromise.