by Gabriel Levitt, President, PharmacyChecker.com and Prescription Justice | Aug 29, 2014 | Advocacy, Drug Prices, Online Pharmacies
In writing about the web domain company EasyDNS’ online pharmacy policy, Mike Masnick, founder of award-winning technology and business innovation blog Techdirt, makes the following observation:
“Fake and dangerous drugs from rogue pharmacies are a real (if relatively small) problem. Legitimate foreign pharmacies selling into the US at cheaper prices are a made up problem by US drug companies. But those US drug companies like to take the “small” problem, and blame it on any non-US pharmacy in an attempt to block out the competition.”
Thank you Mike for expressing that so clearly! The essence of TechDirt is to “analyze and offer insight into news stories about changes in government policy, technology and legal issues that affect companies’ ability to innovate and grow.” Innovation via the Internet has allowed consumers who can’t afford their medicine domestically to access it through foreign pharmacies. The pharmaceutical industry and its well-funded agents are getting away with murder by pressuring online “gatekeepers” such as domain registrars, search engines, and credit card companies to disallow service to pharmacies that American consumers have come to rely on.
To some in the public health community and in government, Mike’s expression of rogue online pharmacies as a “relatively small” problem” may come across as flippant and even naïve – but it cuts much deeper than that. The question is relative to what? If he means relative to the public health crisis of high drug prices in America then Mike is entirely correct: rogue online pharmacies are a small problem compared to high drug prices in America. Far more Americans are getting sick and/or dying because they can’t afford medication at home than they are from dangerous online pharmacy purchases.
That does not excuse the actions of rogue pharmacy websites that endanger the health of consumers. That’s precisely why EasyDNS’ decision to only provide service to online pharmacies if they are approved by LegitScript or PharmacyChecker is visionary. It does not let dangerous pharmacy websites exist, but it refuses to succumb to a protectionist, anti-consumer, big pharma initiative to snuff out innovative business models – safe international online pharmacy – that hinder their profit-making machine and grossly disadvantage consumers.
Rock on TechDirt!
Tagged with: LegitScript, Mike Masnick, pharmacychecker, rogue online pharmacies, Techdirt
by Gabriel Levitt, President, PharmacyChecker.com and Prescription Justice | Aug 22, 2014 | Advocacy, Drug Safety, Internet Censorship, Online Pharmacies, Rogue Online Pharmacies
I’m writing this blog post to say thank you to a domain registrar called EasyDNS and its CEO, Mark Jeftovic, and to talk about what’s up with registrars and online pharmacies, as it could affect your online access to safe and affordable medication. EasyDNS’s new online pharmacy policy denies service to rogue online pharmacies but not safe online pharmacies. It will accomplish this policy by providing service to online pharmacies only if they are approved by LegitScript or PharmacyChecker.
In short, domain registrars are companies that help people obtain website names; names such as www.rxrights.org, www.doctorswithoutborders.org, www.WebMD.com, www.nytimes.com, etc. The most popular of these registrars in America is Go Daddy. If all registrars deny service to a person or a company, such as a rogue online pharmacy, then it cannot reach the public. If all registrars deny service to safe online pharmacies with very low drug prices then the public will not have access to them.
Our friends at RxRights gave a strong shout out to EasyDNS this week as well.
You might be thinking that this is no big deal. Who wouldn’t want to stop rogue pharmacy sites but allow safe, low-cost online pharmacies to operate? Well, earlier this year the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy (NABP) sent letters out to 200 registrars telling them to take down websites that NABP doesn’t recommend. No matter how safe it might be, the NABP does not recommend any international online pharmacy that sells to Americans, instead unfairly calling them rogue sites.
Popular Internet freedom blog Techdirt published an article about NABP called, “Pharmacy Group Lies To Registrars: If We Complain About A Site, It Must Be Taken Down No Questions Asked.” It wrote: “The NABP is basically an organization designed to artificially inflate the price of drugs in the US, cynically using highly questionable claims to pretend that they’re focused on ‘public safety.’”
For the record, there is not a single reported death by a person who ordered from an international online pharmacy, ones that NABP calls “rogue,” that requires a valid prescription and fills orders through licensed pharmacies. The industry has been around for about fifteen years now. (more…)
Tagged with: Alliance for Safe Online Pharmacies, EasyDNS, LegitScript, NABP, Registrars
by PharmacyChecker.com | Sep 19, 2013 | Advocacy, Online Pharmacies, Politics
Our vice president, Gabriel Levitt (Gabe), presented testimony at a congressional hearing yesterday, urging congress to protect Americans’ access to safe and affordable medication online. The hearing was held by the House Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property, and the Internet and titled “The Role of Voluntary Agreements in the U.S. Intellectual Property System.” What exactly does this hearing have to do with Americans buying medication from Canada and other countries?
Basically, the government is encouraging large American companies to band together through “voluntary agreements” to stop online piracy and intellectual property violations online and this hearing discussed the effectiveness of these agreements. The heads of big business trade associations attended primarily to defend current practices and encourage even stricter rules. Although the hearing’s focus was about the online availability of copyright material like music and movies, some committee members were pleased to hear about the online pharmacy side of things. Gabe discussed the voluntary agreements adopted by leading Internet and credit card companies to combat rogue online pharmacies through their association in the Center for Safe Internet Pharmacies , also known as CSIP. CSIP’s efforts, which rely on data powered by LegitScript, have successfully curbed access to some dangerous web pharmacies, but they also wrongly categorize all non-US online pharmacies that sell to Americans as “unapproved.” This may scare Americans away from safe and affordable pharmacies, including sites approved by PharmacyChecker.com. Gabe said:
We believe that voluntary agreements can be a useful tool in protecting Americans from counterfeit products, but they can also be misused in anti-competitive ways which scare and thwart Americans from accessing affordable medication. This leads to poor medication compliance with negative health consequences and also goes against the Administration’s desire that voluntary agreements not be used to impede competition.
We’d like to thank Subcommittee Ranking Member Congressman Melvin Watt who initiated the invitation to Mr. Levitt. While Congressman Watt favors voluntary agreements to combat online intellectual property violations, he genuinely sought insight into how American consumers can be negatively affected by such agreements. You can read the full PharmacyChecker.com congressional testimony and watch the hearing. (Gabe’s testimony begins at 58:00)
Tagged with: Congress, CSIP, Gabriel Levitt, House Judiciary Committee, LegitScript
