Most Internet users face a daily avalanche of e-mailed advertisements for online pharmacies, thousands of vendors claiming to sell everything from painkillers to penis-enlargers online. Most of these offers are fraudulent, and you'd have to be out of your mind to trust an anonymous, untraceable, often overseas source to give you properly formulated medications, if they sent you anything at all (counterfeit drugs are an immense problem around the world).
But surely, out of the thousands and thousands of people offering online pharmaceuticals, some significant number must be legit, right? Well, ACSH president Dr. Elizabeth Whelan found out just how many sites in the U.S. selling pharmaceuticals are considered by the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy to be in compliance with applicable state and federal laws and thereby far more likely to be safe.
Says the Association's Verified Internet Pharmacy Practice Sites (VIPPS) webpage:
To be VIPPS certified, a pharmacy must comply with the licensing and inspection requirements of their state and each state to which they dispense pharmaceuticals. In addition, pharmacies displaying the VIPPS seal have demonstrated to NABP compliance with VIPPS criteria including patient rights to privacy, authentication and security of prescription orders, adherence to a recognized quality assurance policy, and provision of meaningful consultation between patients and pharmacists.
So how many sites made the cut? A grand total of twelve. Here's NABP's list (as of April 13, 2006) in its entirety:
AnthemPrescription.com
Caremark.com
DrugSourceInc.com
Drugstore.com
FamilyMeds.com
CVS.com
MedcoHealth.com
CareforLife.com
RXSolutions.com
Teldrug.com
Walgreens.com
WelldyneRX.com
This is not to say that new sources won't arise or old ones fall by the wayside, and all medication use entails risks and benefits, of course -- but since NABP notes that countless dubious suppliers arise and become defunct every day, and since getting the wrong medication (or mistakenly thinking you're taking medication, for that matter) could kill you, you'd be wise to treat most Internet drug pitches as the useless spam they are.
Todd Seavey is Director of Publications at the American Council on Science and Health (ACSH.org) and editor of HealthFactsAndFears.com.
