“Our goal is to increase awareness,†FDA Commissioner Dr. Margaret Hamburg told The Associated Press, “not to scare people away from online pharmacies. We want them to use appropriate pharmacies.â€
That means pharmacies that are located in the U.S., are licensed by the pharmacy board in the patient’s state and have a licensed pharmacist available to answer questions. In addition, the pharmacy must require a valid doctor’s prescription for the medicine. Online drugstores that claim none is needed, or that the site’s doctor can write a prescription after the customer answers some questions, are breaking the law.
Research by the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy, which represents the state pharmacy boards, found that of thousands of online pharmacies it reviewed, only about 3 percent follow state and federal laws. In fact, the group’s website lists only a few dozen Internet pharmacies that it has verified are legitimate and following the rules.
Most consumers don’t know that. An Internet survey, conducted by the FDA in May, questioned 6,090 adults. It found that nearly one in four Internet shoppers has bought prescription drugs online, and nearly three in 10 said they weren’t confident they could do so safely.
The campaign comes after some high-profile cases of counterfeit drugs reaching American patients earlier this year.
In February and again in April, the FDA warned doctors and cancer clinics around the country that it had determined they had bought fake Avastin, a pricey injectable cancer medicine, from a “gray market†wholesaler. The fake Avastin vials originated in Asia or Eastern Europe and were transferred through a network of shady wholesalers before being sold to clinics by a wholesaler claiming to be in Montana.
In another case, the FDA issued a warning in May after learning consumers shopping on the Internet had bought fake versions of generic Adderall, a popular medication for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.
No deaths or serious injuries have been linked to those fakes, but Hamburg notes that when drugs don’t help patients get better, doctors usually blame the disease or assume a different medicine is needed. That means most fakes aren’t detected.
