President Donald Trump's administration has been "delivering" on the promise of lower prescription drug prices, as new numbers mark the largest decrease in prescription drug prices in 51 years, Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said Friday.
"It's coming from historic levels of approvals of generic drugs," Azar told Fox News' "Fox & Friends." "That's what we just announced the other day. The FDA has the third year in a row under president trump's leadership of approving historic levels of these affordable generic copies of branded drugs."
The moves have saved $26 billion for American consumers in the first 18 months of Trump's term in office, said Azar.
He also dismissed claims generic prescription drugs are not of the same quality as those from brand names.
"I'm your health secretary, and you know what? Every single drug I take is a generic," said Azar. "They are exact copies. They wouldn't get approved by FDA if they weren't."
He also discussed the announcement by e-cigarette maker Juul it will quit making several flavored products.
"I'm very glad we are seeing people recognize that these products are attractive and available to kids," said Azar. "These are addicting a whole generation of kids to nicotine, and that is a really serious health problem. So we are glad to see these coming off the market."
Meanwhile, all e-cigarettes on the market are "illegal," said Azar, as they have not been approved by the FDA.
"The Obama administration started a program saying let's let these be on the market initially so we can get adults to get off combustible tobacco," said Azar. "Then, what we saw was this surge up in youth using these products."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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