Don’t Buy Prescription Drugs Over The Internet
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The FDA is warning yet again that you shouldn’t purchase prescription drugs over the Internet. The latest alert is in regards to 24 web sites that are distributing counterfeit drugs.
On three occasions during recent months, FDA received information that counterfeit versions of Xenical 120 mg capsules, a drug manufactured by Hoffmann-La Roche Inc. (Roche), were obtained by three consumers from two different Web sites. Xenical is an FDA-approved drug used to help obese individuals who meet certain weight and height requirements lose weight and maintain weight loss.
None of the capsules ordered off the Web sites contained orlistat, the active ingredient in authentic Xenical. In fact, laboratory analysis conducted by Roche and submitted to the FDA confirmed that one capsule contained sibutramine, which is the active ingredient in Meridia, an FDA-approved prescription drug manufactured by Abbott Laboratories.
While this product is also used to help people lose weight and maintain that loss, it should not be used in certain patient populations and therefore is not a substitute for other weight loss products. In addition the drug interactions profile is different between Xenical and sibutramine, as is the dosing frequency; sibutramine is administered once daily while Xenical is dosed three times a day.
Not only are prescription drugs sold over the internet often counterfeit, you’ll be lucky to get anything from these sellers. More often than not now they’re just schemes to collect personal information on the buyers in order to use their information for identity theft.
There has also been a cases where prescription drugs sold on the internet contained poison.
All you do by visiting these drug seller’s sites is encourage more spam and put your health and safety at risk. Stay away from the online drug purchasing and use your local pharmacy.
[FDA Warns Consumers about Counterfeit Drugs from Multiple Internet Sellers]
[tags]identity theft, avoid identity theft, identity theft and fraud, stolen identity, stop identity theft, counterfeit drugs, drugs, FDA, health, food and drug administration, pharmacy[/tags]
3 Comments
Dave
May 10th, 2007
at 3:53pm
While I would not purchase drugs from any website due to a lack of trust… I have no doubts that the FDA is in the hip pockets of the pharmaceutical companies here in the States. The FDA does not do what is in the best interests of the common people. They have sold us out to the pharmaceuticals to make a buck.
Don
January 22nd, 2008
at 9:32pm
Maybe if we had universal health care in the US, Americans wouldn’t be willing to risk their lives to save a few bucks! Why is it that in the UK, critical drugs for dialysis costs patients an average of $8 out of pocket while in the US the same drugs cost Americans $114 out of pocket (even with insurance)?!?! Over 1 million Americans a year jump the border to fill their prescriptions in Canada. The unified response of the drug companies was to threaten to withdraw their drugs from the Canadian market if the Canadian government didn’t do something to stop Americans from filling their prescriptions in Canada. Just about every 1st-world nation has some method of managing prescription drug prices to stay reasonable. In this aspect, the US is simply a 3rd-world nation, giving as much thought to fair and equal health care as the Saudis give to womens’ equality. If change doesn’t come soon, I’ll have to move to another country that actually cares about their citizens.
David
April 4th, 2008
at 12:49pm
The reason most people buy prescription drugs over the Internet is really quite elementary: Americans pay more per capita than any other country in the World for pharmaceutical products. And yes, as Dave pointed out above, the FDA not only has its hand in the pharmaceutical companies hip pocket it also has the other hand, both feet and head right up there, too. They aren’t idiots, they know a giant cash cow when they see one. The excuse is: they need the money for research to create better, more effective medications. BS, Lipitor, by Pfizer, a cholesterol control drug is known as a “blockbuster” drug, meaning it rakes in 10 $ billion in sales per year. That’s just ONE DRUG. and ONE COMPANY. The next big killer will be cancer and then we will have “blockbuster” cancer drugs that cost astronomical prices to finance further “research”. Look up Pfizer’s CEO’s salary and you’ll understand the motivation quite clearly for pharma companies “research”.
What it comes down to is an unfair system that favors those with money over those without. Many people have to choose between eating and medical insurance. The choice is quite obvious. I may sound like a communist and/or socialist but the problem lies within capitalism itself. Healthcare is a business in the US, not a human right. That is where fundamental changes need to be made, remove the profit aspect from medical treatment and the US would have the best system in the World, albeit at the cost of other programs like, maybe, the war in Iraq which has now killed more of our people than all 9/11 attacks combined, costs 1 billion dollars a day to maintain and causes untold suffering for both Americans and Iraqis, not to mention establishing a solid terrorist presence in a country that had none before.
Plus there’s the little matter of a 1 trillion dollar trade deficit with China. China is positioning itself as the next super power. There are strong nationalist feelings in China pertaining to Tibet and Taiwan. Mainland Chinese are adamant these places are Chinese territory. There is a day of reckoning coming between the US and China. Jihadis will be like fighting Mickey Mouse compared to China and that day may come much sooner than we all think.