Last year, PharmacyChecker.com criticized BeSafeRx, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s online pharmacy public education campaign, for implying that all online pharmacies located outside the U.S. are fake pharmacies. BeSafeRx discourages Americans who cannot afford medicine at their local pharmacies from accessing medicine online internationally, which has been shown to be safe if done properly. Real pharmacies in Canada and other countries sell the same medication sold here for much lower prices. Misinformation becomes a public health threat when it discourages people from finding viable ways of accessing needed medication. BeSafeRx has a new database program that enables consumers to check the license of a U.S. pharmacy found online. That’s nice, but the program reinforces the message that Americans should only buy from U.S. pharmacies, never over the Internet from foreign pharmacies. What is the FDA’s logic?
Here is an excerpt from the FDA’s website on importing prescription drugs:
FDA cannot ensure the safety and effectiveness of products that are not FDA-approved and come from unknown sources and foreign locations, or that may not have been manufactured under proper conditions. These unknowns put patient’s health at risk if they cannot be sure of the products identity, purity, and source. For these reasons, FDA recommends only obtaining medicines from legal sources in the U.S.
Just because the FDA does not vouch for prescription medication sold in other countries does not mean that prescription medications sold abroad are less safe than those sold domestically. There are other national drug regulatory authorities to help safeguard medication. For example, Health Canada’s Therapeutic Products Directorate approves and regulates drugs in Canada in almost exactly the same way the FDA does here. Americans who order medication from safe international online pharmacies, such as those verified by PharmacyChecker.com, receive medication regulated under the authority of a foreign country.
The new FDA database is only helpful if you need to check the license of a U.S. pharmacy found online with prices you can afford. If you can’t afford to pay a pharmacy’s prices, the safety of its medications are irrelevant.
The National Association of Boards of Pharmacy (NABP) has applied to the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) to operate the registry .Pharmacy (dot pharmacy). Opposition to the application is picking up steam. Many believe that NABP’s efforts will merely serve to protect U.S. pharmacy and pharmaceutical interests at the expense of the public health by barring competition from safe non-U.S., international online pharmacies, which sell the same prescription drugs sold in the U.S. at a much lower price. Not only is the NABP application to ICANN is funded by pharmaceutical companies, but NABP’s named “Partners” in the ICANN application include Eli Lilly, a large drug company and the National Association of Chain Drugstores, a trade association representing the largest American pharmacy chains.
Opposition to NABP’s application to ICANN for .Pharmacy Registry
If given the power to oversee the registry for the .Pharmacy top-level domain, the NABP would decide which websites are permitted to use the .Pharmacy ending in their web address. It appears that the NABP’s proposed registry rules would prohibit registry to websites of safe international online pharmacies (such as websites run by licensed Canadian pharmacies) if they sell internationally to Americans. The lack of a “.Pharmacy” address by such pharmacies could frighten Americans away from using them. Considering that tens of millions of Americans don’t take medication due to high U.S. drug prices, discouraging or blocking access to affordable medication is unconscionable.
As recognized in a letter sent from RxRights.org to NABP, it does not have to be this way. The goal of providing a trusted marketplace for consumers who are searching online for safe and affordable medication can be served with a .Pharmacy website program. However, to provide the greatest benefit to consumers, ALL online pharmacies, U.S., Canadian, or otherwise, that sell authentic medication and require prescriptions should be eligible to obtain a .Pharmacy site, regardless of who they sell to. Unless the NABP agrees to adopt registry rules fostering an open and free Internet, one that maximizes access to safe and affordable medication, its application should be rejected by ICANN.
The ongoing federal government crackdown on U.S. pharmacy sales of narcotic prescription medications, most notably against Walgreens in Florida, serves to remind us that prescription drug abuse is a major health problem. But only a tiny fraction of illegal prescription narcotic sales take place online, less than 1% according to Agent Robert Hill of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (.4% to be exact).
The DEA seeks to shutdown a major Walgreen’s distribution center in Jupiter, Florida. As part of its investigation of Walgreens, the DEA found that one of its pharmacies was supplied 3271 bottles of oxycodone, a highly abused narcotic, during a 40-day period in a town with less than 3000 people. It appears that Walgreens knew about supply abuses but did not heed the warnings until confronted by DEA. One email obtained during the investigation shows an employee confused about how the receiving pharmacy could “even house this many bottles.”
The prescription drug abuse crisis in the United States is a domestic not international or “foreign pharmacy” distribution problem. In fact, reputable international online pharmacies, based in Canada or elsewhere, do not sell controlled substances to Americans. When it comes to the Internet, Americans should use extreme caution if ordering controlled substances online by only ordering from licensed U.S. pharmacies with the proper DEA registration and in compliance with the Ryan Haight Online Pharmacy Consumer Protection Act.
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