Clayton, Mo. ? Drug-maker Pfizer Inc. refused to budge Thursday from its opposition to Americans seeking cheaper prescription medicines from Canada.

As about a dozen people protested Pfizer’s stance outside Pfizer’s annual shareholders meeting, the company’s chief said the federally barred “importation of medicines across America’s borders poses a clear threat to patient safety.”

Considering that foreign drugs aren’t controlled, “are small savings on a fraction of the nation’s health-care bill worth the risks to safety?” said Henry McKinnell, Pfizer’s chairman and chief executive.

While importing cheaper drugs from Canada looks like an easy fix for patients, he said, the practice exposes all Americans “to a rising tide of counterfeit drugs,” most indistinguishable from legitimate ones.

New York-based Pfizer’s meeting came a day after a bipartisan group of senators introduced the latest legislative effort to allow Americans to fill their prescriptions in Canada; it would eventually allow drugs to be imported from 20 industrialized countries, mainly in Europe.

The White House, Republican congressional leaders and the pharmaceutical industry remain opposed, sharing Pfizer’s safety concerns and worries that such measures would lead to a spike in counterfeit drugs in this country.

Though federal law bars the importation of Canadian medications, the Food and Drug Administration has signaled it would not go after individuals who do so.

None of the seven shareholder proposals on Thursday’s agenda specifically involved imported prescription drugs. But one measure asked that the company detail by September how it was keeping price increases of its most-prescribed drugs at or below the inflation rate.

That measure, which Pfizer’s board unanimously opposed, was overwhelmingly defeated.

Residents from Missouri, Illinois and Indiana protest outside a Pfizer Inc. shareholders meeting in St. Louis. They said Thursday that Pfizer appeared to be succeeding in its efforts to block Americans from buying drugs through Canadian pharmacies.