DeSantis Files Lawsuit Against FDA for Delaying Drug Program

PUNTA GORDA, Fla.—For 630 days a warehouse in Lakeland has sat vacant—waiting on a shipment of drugs from Canada that never came.

Gov. Ron DeSantis said on Aug. 31 that he “has waited long enough” and is filing suit against the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to “put an end to” delays.

DeSantis told a crowd in Lakeland that he found a 20-year-old law that would allow the states to apply to Health and Human Services to purchase drugs from Canada.

After a meeting with then-president Donald Trump, it was agreed that he could do this, and submitted all the necessary paperwork to the FDA where it has sat since the “later part of 2020,” he said.

“These are the same drugs that you purchase here,” DeSantis said with his voice ringing off the walls of the empty warehouse.

“It has been sitting at the FDA for months and months and months—and no action. We’re asking a federal judge to order the FDA to put an end to that delay and to approve Florida’s program.”

Bob Lavallee was present at the news conference and told the governor that he and his wife are facing a decision to either “buy food or medicine.”

Both need medications to survive.

Bob, who has problems with what he called “word stuff” due to a stroke he suffered in 2015, said he was a walking miracle due in part to a drug he is on now called Eliquis.

“It’s a life-saving medicine,” he told the governor with his voice cracking, overcome with emotion.

“So … this next month in September, we’re going to have to decide either it’s going to be medicine or food.”

Lavallee said his medicine is $500 out of his pocket for a 90-day supply and his wife’s medicine is $300 for her 90-day