[mikeash]

Safety might be a good reason to prohibit imports from a place like Tanzania, but it makes no sense as a reason to prohibit imports from Canada. Canada has some equivalent to the FDA which is about as good as ours, so there should be no safety problem when it comes to importing their medicine.

[notyourday]

We do not have reciprocity agreement with Canada regarding drug approvals.

[mikeash]

Anything approved in both countries ought to be OK, no?

[notyourday]

You are describing this:

Canada->US, approved US->Canada, approved

i.e. Canadian companies are successfully selling to the united states medicine that is manufactured in Canada and is regulated by the US. US companies successfully selling products to Canada that are manufactured in the US and regulated in Canada.

If we had a reciprocity then we would have:

US->Canda->US auto-approved Canada->US->Canada auto-approved

i.e. if a product is sold to Canada then it can be re-imported into the US.

[mikeash]

I’m saying that even if we don’t have reciprocity, if the drug is separately approved in both countries, it should be legal to buy in Canada and take to the US.

[notyourday]

No, because our system of approvals does not treat re-import the same as direct import.

[mikeash]

By “should,” I’m saying it ought to be structured this way, not that it actually is at this time.