However, Sen. John Breaux, D-La., said drugs sold from Canada for exportation may come from countries such as Indonesia, Vietnam and Ecuador where safeguards for purity and quality are poor. He said a Congressional Budget Office study also predicts importation would reduce prices by just 1 percent overall in America. That is a high price for counterfeiting and other problems that might come, he added.

Hatch also said that importation "to take advantage of other countries' price controls has other potential repercussions, including the prospect of diminished research into future life-saving treatments" because drug companies could not afford them.

He said it may be wise to address that problem through trade policy and sanctions.

"American taxpayers are putting up $28 billion of their hard-earned dollars this year for biomedical research at the National Institutes of Health while . . . many other countries essentially free-ride on U.S. research and development activities and then set price controls on the approved drugs that are the fruits of this U.S.-financed research," he said. "It is the American taxpayer and consumer that is paying dearly."

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