WASHINGTON (Reuters Health) - American consumers hunting for bargain prescriptions through the mail, on the Internet or in Canada are facing a growing risk of taking counterfeit medications, officials told US lawmakers Tuesday.

Seizures of adulterated or counterfeit drugs have increased drastically over the past 3 years, suggesting that a high volume of fake products is entering the US from Asia, Europe and other locations, officials said. Part of the reason for the spike is increased border security in the wake of September 11.

"Because we are looking at more things, we are finding more things in every arena," Elizabeth G. Durant, the executive director of trade programs at the US Customs Service, told the Senate Committee on Aging.

Durant said that "millions" of medication shipments enter the US through the mail each year as US consumers, many of them low-income seniors, search for lower priced drugs on the Internet and through mail-order services.

She also noted a "disturbing trend" of increasing bulk shipments of drugs, raising the risk that counterfeit drugs could get by inspectors and find their way into US medicine cabinets. Customs officials are "overwhelmed" by the amount of medications coming into the country through the mail and on persons crossing the border, she said.

US drug companies have long battled efforts to counterfeit and smuggle copied or expired drugs onto the US market. America is a tempting target for smugglers because drug prices in this country are so much higher than in other nations, according to William K. Hubbard, a policy official with the Food and Drug Administration.

Importing drugs from Canada is "the trend of the day," he said. Internet and mail-order firms offer cut-rate drugs from north of the border to seniors and others who frequently use prescriptions. Many seniors from northern states have also resorted to organized bus trips that take them to Canada where they can purchase US-made drugs from pharmacies for a fraction of the US price.

Hubbard said that he is confident that drugs bought at Canadian pharmacies are probably safe. But he also said that the growing trend makes Canada a more attractive target for counterfeit smugglers looking to infiltrate the US.

Some lawmakers have seized on the bus trips as illustrations of out-of-control drug prices in the US. Several have introduced proposals that would change current law to allow for the wholesale reimportation of US-made, FDA-approved drugs so consumers here could buy them at cut-rate prices.

The proposals are expected to be considered when the Senate debates adding a prescription drug benefit to the Medicare system in the coming weeks.

But Louisiana Democrat Sen. John Breaux, a member of the Finance Committee and a key voice on Medicare issues, said that counterfeiting concerns make it impossible to guarantee the safety of drugs imported from Canada or other countries.

One proposal, sponsored by Sens. Byron Dorgan (D-ND) and Deborah Stabenow (D-MI) would allow US-made drugs to re-enter the country to be sold at lower prices. Breaux said that the plan could not protect the chain of custody between the time the drugs leave the US and the time they return, echoing arguments made by the US drug industry, which also opposes the measure.

"We can guarantee that they'll be cheap, but we can't guarantee that they'll be safe," he said in an interview.

A similar proposal passed Congress and was signed into law by President Clinton in 2000. The law was never implemented because health officials in both the Clinton and George W. Bush administrations refused to certify that reimported drugs would meet US safety standards.

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