As a threat to our nation's security, allowing imported drugs into our pharmacies ranks just below terrorism. Yet this idea refuses to die. Why is drug importation (and its twin the reimportation of American drugs from foreign countries) a bad idea? Aren't cheaper drugs good for low-income Americans?

The Food and Drug Administration's response—reasserted last month by FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg—is that imported and reimported drugs can't be guaranteed to be safe. Studies have shown that a significant percentage of drugs thought to be American-made and reimported are actually counterfeit, ineffective or even toxic. In one sting in 2003, for example, FDA and Customs officials found that 88% of the imported drug packages they inspected did not meet FDA safety standards.

But there is an even more important reason why importing drugs is dangerous. Importing foreign drugs or reimporting American-made drugs is a back-door way of introducing price controls in America. Many foreign countries, including Canada, impose price controls on drugs, which is why reimporting American-made drugs is cheaper than simply buying drugs that haven't left the country.

And allowing price controls into this country is a sure path to destroying our drug industry, which is now a prime driver in developing new and innovative pharmaceuticals. The drug industries in countries with price controls lag behind our drug industry in developing new, important drugs.

It is unfair that Americans underwrite the cost of developing new drugs for much of the rest of the world. But the solution to that disparity isn't to destroy our innovative drug industry. It would be much better to find ways to make the rest of the world pays its fair share.