July 22 Daily News editorial

Americans visiting Canada can catch a break on their prescription drug costs. Since 2006, the law has allowed visitors to Canada to return with a three-month supply of drugs. Consumers soon may be able to purchase lower-priced Canadian drugs without crossing the border.

The Senate has approved a proposal by Louisiana Republican David Vitter that would let Americans buy their prescription medications from Canadian pharmacies via the Internet. Sen. Vitter drafted the 2006 bill ending the ban on bringing cheaper Canadian drugs back across the border. This new proposal would expand that earlier legislation to allow Internet purchases.

Vitter’s proposal could be expected to bring a welcome measure of relief for the estimated 46 million Americans who struggle to pay out-of-pocket the high costs of prescription medicine. Prescription drug prices in Canada run from 35 percent to 55 percent lower than in this country.

Giving U.S. consumers easy access to those lower-priced drugs also might help reduce the cost of prescription drugs in the United States by pressuring U.S. drug manufacturers to lower their prices at home. The Congressional Budget Office studied a drug-importation proposal very similar to Vitter’s and estimated that it would save American consumers $50 billion in drug costs over the next decade. That CBO estimate included more than $10 billion in savings for the federal government over the next 10 years.

Expanding consumer access to Canadian drugs is worth doing, if it can be shown to be safe. Safety is a concern that any drug-importation plan must address, though not so great a concern as pharmaceutical industry lobbyists make it out to be. The fact is, Americans import roughly 10 million shipments of medicines from abroad each year, both legally and illegally, with few reported ill effects. Indeed, most of the drugs purchased from abroad are manufactured in the United States. That’s why Vitter and other advocates of these plans call them “reimportation” plans.

Nevertheless, safety demands that consumer access be limited to Food and Drug Administration-approved drugs from FDA-inspected pharmacies. Vitter’s proposal includes these and other safeguards. It would allow only credible, regulated pharmacies in Canada with FDA-approved safety standards to sell their drugs here via the Internet. The pharmacies would have to be registered with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and sell only FDA-approved drugs.

These safeguards and due caution on the part of consumers should be enough to ensure the safety of Vitter’s proposal. Americans need a break from high prescription drug costs. Congress ought to act quickly in getting this drug-importation plan to the White House for the president’s signature.