US Pharm. 2006;2:3.
Not only was Truth or Consequences a
popular 1950s television game show (and a town in
Last November, customs agents intercepted
more than 50 shipments of counterfeit Tamiflu, the drug being stockpiled for a
possible flu pandemic. The FDA reported that the drugs contained none of
Tamiflu's active ingredient; instead, the fake capsules contained some vitamin
C and not much else. An FDA investigation a month later uncovered a
significant percentage of drugs shipped from Internet sites purporting to be
Canadian pharmacies that were not located in
And yet, despite all this publicity,
patients continue to play Russian roulette with their lives by ordering drugs
from phony noncertified Internet pharmacy sites, lured by low prices and
falsehoods regarding the products' potency and/or country of origin. While I
have no hard data identifying who those patients are, it is not unreasonable
to assume they likely are
Throughout history, retail pharmacists have
unfortunately been on the front lines of defending the price of prescription
drugs, despite their own decreasing profits and struggles to keep their heads
above the rising tide of profit-eating third-party prescriptions. It's bad
enough that pharmacists have to answer consumers' complaints about increased
multi-tier copayments; they should not have to be bombarded by Internet drug
pricing as well. It is imperative that pharmacists clearly communicate to
their patients the dangers of purchasing drugs online. It is also vitally
important that consumers have a clear understanding of the professional value
their pharmacists can offer in ensuring the purity of the drugs they dispense.
There is no question that this country needs
to do more to stop the influx of counterfeit drugs and eliminate the
development of fake Internet sites that advertise them, but that task is
daunting, if not impossible. The pharmaceutical community needs to continue
its aggressive attack on illegal Internet sites that sell prescription drugs.
The next time a patient comes into your pharmacy comparing prices of the drugs
you dispense to those of drugs being sold on the Internet, remind them that
they should not play the game of Truth or Consequences when it comes to their
health.
Harold E. Cohen, R. Ph.
Editor-in-Chief
To comment on this article, contact editor@uspharmacist.com.