Online Pharmacies Come Under Scrutiny
The embryonic online prescription-drug business is coming under scrutiny from federal watchdogs and professional organizations because of reports that some companies allow customers to purchase powerful prescription medicines such as Viagra and Propecia, the male anti-baldness drug, with nothing more than an online “visit” to a virtual doctor.
Rep. John D. Dingell (D-Mich.), one of the most senior members of Congress, has asked the General Accounting Office to investigate companies that sell drugs on the Internet.
The National Assn. of Boards of Pharmacy, which represents the boards that set standards in every state, has begun to review the activities of online purveyors of prescription drugs.
The fast-growing electronic pharmaceutical industry, based largely on the West Coast, has gained financial backing from some of the most successful online enterprises. Just two weeks ago, Amazon.com, the Internet bookseller, announced it was taking a stake in Drugstore.com, which sells both prescription and nonprescription pharmaceuticals as well as other drugstore goods.
Prescription drugs are one of the fastest-growing health-care sectors, with annual sales of $102 billion in 1998, according to the National Assn. of Chain Drugstores. Internet prescriptions are a subset of mail-order drugs, which are increasingly the mode of purchase for people who have chronic illnesses and want to be sure they get needed medications on schedule. At these sites, patients must submit the names and phone numbers of their doctors so their prescriptions can be verified.
Precipitating the scrutiny of the online stores, however, is the practice by some of them of not only filling prescriptions but also providing physicians to write them for patients who do not have their own doctors.
Customers of some online vendors wanting to buy Viagra, for example, can obtain the anti-impotence drug by filling out online questionnaires that are reviewed by doctors for potential problems. There is no way to guarantee the information’s accuracy, however. And Viagra, which can interact dangerously with heart medication, has been linked to deaths.
Customers at some of these sites also can easily buy the allergy medicine Claritin and the male anti-baldness drug Propecia, which is extremely dangerous for pregnant women. Merely handling broken pills has been linked to birth defects.
“If there isn’t a legitimate patient-physician interaction at a site, they are practicing pharmacy illegally,” said Carmen Catizone, executive director of the National Assn. of Pharmacy Boards. Especially worrisome to the association is the appearance of sites that are blatantly illegal, merely asking patients to answer a few brief health questions and then filling a prescription.
There are also sites outside the United States that are shipping in prescription drugs whose contents are not verifiable, Catizone said.
Dingell, in a letter made public Wednesday, asked the GAO to explore whether online pharmaceutical companies inadequately verify prescriptions.
He also asked that the GAO examine the industry’s privacy guidelines to determine whether it is selling sensitive medical information to drug companies or insurers.
