CANADIAN HELP WANTED

Advocates of importing drugs from Canada to lower prescription costs, including Maine’s senators, must have been surprised to hear President Bush suggest that flu vaccine could come from that country to ease a shortage of the shots. If vaccines can safely be imported from Canada or other countries, it would follow that other drugs could be as well.

Because of contamination of the vaccine at a British plant, the United States will get about half the flu vaccine it expected. Asked about this during Wednesday night’s presidential debate, Mr. Bush said his administration was working with Canada to “realize the vaccine necessary.” Later, Secretary of Health and Human Services Tommy Thompson said it was “doubtful” that a vaccine from Canada could be licensed for sale in the United States in time for this year’s flu season.

Still, the notion that the medicine could come from Canada contradicts the administration’s strong position that drugs from other countries are not safe and cannot be imported into the United States. Faced with skyrocketing health care costs, many municipalities and some states have begun importing drugs from Canada and other countries for their employees.

Maine is developing its own importation program. Earlier this month, Gov. John Baldacci asked Secretary Thompson for a federal waiver to reimport wholesale prescription drugs, which would be distributed by the Penobscot Nation. The prescription drugs would be available first to the uninsured and underinsured and later to the general population. Such a waiver is far from a sure bet, however. This summer, Vermont took the unprecedented step of saying it intends to sue the Food and Drug Administration for denying its request to import cheaper drugs from Canada for its state workers and, ultimately, its citizens.

Drugs from Canada typically cost at least 30 percent less than the same product sold in the United States. Yet, efforts by both Sen. Olympia Snowe and Sen. Susan Collins to pass bills that allowed reimportation, with strict safety requirements, have failed.

Reimportation should only be an interim measure. It makes no sense to sell drugs made by U.S. companies to Canada for a lower price (because their government negotiated a lower price) and then to import those drugs into the United States. It makes much more sense for the U.S. government to negotiate a lower price in the first place. That is what all other developed countries do and what the Department of Health and Human Services recently announced it would do for cancer drugs for Medicare patients. Instead of following this logical route, the Medicare reform bill passed last year barred the federal government from negotiating drug prices.

It is understandable that the United States would turn to any country that could help with the flu vaccine shortage. Lowering drug prices is another pressing problem that could be helped by the same solution.