Why ordering drugs online can be risky
Most online pharmacies are illegitimate. A 2012 analysis of 9,677 of them by the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy (NABP), which accredits online drugstores in addition to representing state pharmacy boards across the U.S., found that just over 3 percent appear to be sound. It considers the rest to be "rogue" operations. More than 85 percent don't require a valid prescription from the customer's doctor; almost 50 percent offer foreign drugs or ones not approved by the Food and Drug Administration; almost a quarter have a physical address outside the U.S.; and about 35 percent have computer servers in foreign countries.
Drugs shipped from abroad (including Canada) aren't protected by the FDA. Although there are legitimately regulated Canadian online pharmacies, most websites posing as Canadian pharmacies aren't Canadian, according to the NABP. And the FDA isn't permitted to regulate foreign
versions of medicine purchased via the Internet, so their ingredients might be unknown. Also, the drugs may not have been approved by the FDA (as with generic versions of drugs not yet approved in the
U.S.), or foreign regulatory agencies may not have approved the drugs.
You are unlikely to get what you ordered, even if you take the risk. One recent study in the lournal PLoS One had less-than-encouraging results. Researchers ordered drugs online from websites they thought were legitimate and others they suspected were not. Of the 152 drugs received, they found that three orders of the erectile dysfunction drug Viagra (sildenafil) failed in testing and were probably counterfeit. And 31 orders (20 percent) weren't filled with the drug that was prescribed.
Bottom line: Stick to ordering online from stores you already know and trust, and look for the Verified Internet Pharmacy Practice Sites (VIPPS) symbol to check a website's safety.
Consumer Reports on Health  SEPTEMBER 2012
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