Med Safety Online

On line Canadian pharmacies and online overseas pharmacies seems like a good deal. With the price is health care and prescription medication on the rise, anyway to get help with prescription drug costs is a welcome relief.    On line Canadian pharmacies look legit, they have decent customer service and their prices are way lower than online pharmacies in USA, usually 30-40%.    Most people expect that our neighbors to the north have the same medication as us, but the truth is ordering discount medications online from on line Canadian pharmacies can be extremely dangerous. 

The truth is that US companies are not outsourcing the production of medication, in fact legally they cannot. The FDA (Food and Drug Administration) does not allow any import of drugs manufactured outside of the USA because the producers are not in the jurisdiction of the FDA and are not subject to the strict regulations that they are in the USA. The FDA does a good job at keeping a close eye on the manufacturing and distribution of the medications within the USA, so buying drugs from any online overseas pharmacies or on line canadian pharmacies cannot be guaranteed to be FDA approved or even safe.

The FDA recently published a consumer safety guide for buying pharmaceuticals online (http://www.fda.gov/Drugs/ResourcesForYou/ucm080588.htm) which specifically outlines how dangerous this can be. According to the study, the FDA got a hold of some on line pharmaceuticals and examined their chemical makeup. What they found is some of the medications:

•  are fake (counterfeit or “copycat” medicines)
• are too strong or too weak
• have dangerous ingredients
• have expired (are out-of-date)
• aren’t FDA-approved (haven’t been checked for safety and effectiveness)
• aren’t made using safe standards
• aren’t safe to use with other medicine or products you use
• aren’t labeled, stored, or shipped correctly

Additional FDA studies show that discount medications online from online overseas pharmacies are simply not what they appear to be:

The FDA purchased and analyzed several products that were represented online as Tamiflu (oseltamivir). One of the orders, which arrived in an unmarked envelope with a postmark from India, consisted of unlabeled, white tablets. When analyzed by FDA, the tablets were found to contain talc and acetaminophen, but none of the active ingredient oseltamivir.  Other web sites sell counterfeit drugs that may look exactly like real FDA-approved medicines, but their quality and safety are unknown.

The FDA also became aware of a number of people who placed orders over the Internet for one of the following products:

• Ambien (zolpidem tartrate)
• Xanax (alprazolam)
• Lexapro (escitalopram oxalate)
• Ativan (lorazepam)

Instead of receiving the drug they ordered, several customers received products containing what was identified as foreign versions of Haldol (haloperidol), a powerful anti-psychotic drug. As a result, these customers needed emergency medical treatment for symptoms such as difficulty in breathing, muscle spasms, and muscle stiffness—all problems that can occur with haloperidol.

Source: US Food and Drug Administration, March 18, 2010. “The Possible Dangers of Buying Medicines Over the Internet” Found at http://www.fda.gov/ForConsumers/ConsumerUpdates/ucm048396.htm

The bottom line is that ordering from online overseas pharmacies is just not worth the risk, no matter how much money you think you’ll be saving. For information about how to determine safe online pharmacies, please see my blog post here.