ROCKVILLE, Md. — Manufacturers and distributors of prescription drugs argued strongly Monday against legalizing the importation of medications into the United States, telling a federal task force that such a system would be neither safe nor cost-effective.

The millions of Americans who buy their prescription drugs from Canada at a cost savings of as much as 70 percent "assume an incredible risk," Lawrence Kocot, senior vice president and general counsel of the National Association of Chain Drug Stores Inc., told the panel.

Other drug distributors and manufacturers emphasized the problem of drug counterfeiting, saying that the cost of testing lower-priced imported drugs for safety would negate any savings for consumers.

The industry presented its well-known opposition to drug importation at the second meeting of a task force created by Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson to comply with a requirement of the new Medicare law.

At the panel’s first meeting, consumer advocates focused on the high cost of prescription drugs in the United States, saying that tens of thousands of Americans die each year because they cannot afford needed medications.

In contrast, drug-industry executives stressed the potential cost of expanding the Food and Drug Administration’s safety regulations to include imported prescription drugs. While the executives could not predict how much such a system would cost or say how much their companies had spent to combat counterfeiting and other security problems, they said a legal market for imported drugs would further cut into profits, slow the development of new drugs and weaken the nation’s free-market system.

Having heard from invited representatives of consumer groups and the industry, the task force will hold a daylong hearing next week that will be open to speakers from the general public.

The Medicare law requires Thompson to make recommendations to Congress by Dec. 1, but the secretary has said he hopes the panel will complete its work by midsummer.