20-January-2012

Although safe online pharmacies do exist, the vast majority of websites calling themselves pharmacies are fraudulent and often sell unsafe medications without requiring prescriptions, according to the Pharmacy Today article "Illegal Online Drug Sellers: How to Stop Them?"

"Thousands of so-called 'pharmacy' sites operate in violation of state and federal laws put in place to protect patients," said Libby Baney, vice president at FaegreBD Consulting and advisor to the Alliance for Safe Online Pharmacies. "They are purporting to be pharmacies but have no actual pharmacy license or a practicing pharmacist behind the scenes of the website."

Congress has introduced a few bills, including PROTECT-IP and SOPA, that would encourage Internet vendors such as credit card companies and search engines to voluntarily stop facilitating illegal online drug sellers. However, the Internet industry has strongly objected to these bills.

"There are active discussions about how to address some of those [Internet industry] concerns and yet still move the legislation forward in a meaningful way," Baney told Pharmacy Today. She says an alternative piece of legislation, the Online Pharmacy Safety Act is being worked on. This bill would empower FDA to create a list of all safe online pharmacy websites and also define a "valid prescription."

"It's targeted, it's reasonable, and it provides essential tools" to consumer and health professionals to confirm that a website is safe, Baney said of the Online Pharmacy Safety Act. It also allows Internet intermediaries to check the online pharmacies they do business with and lets law enforcement dig a little deeper into websites not on the list.

Congress, federal agencies and numerous other stakeholders are all fighting the war on illegal online drug sellers, and their actions are strong statements of support for increased consumer protection on the Internet, Baney told Pharmacy Today.

"My prediction would be that all of these conversations will come back together in 2012 and will need to be reconciled in order to move any of these pieces of legislation forward," Baney said. Read more.