CDC WARNS OF DANGEROUS COUNTERFEIT DRUGS SOLD AT ONLINE PHARMACIES
The CDC issued a warning last week to patients, families and caregivers of the danger of ordering medications from online pharmacies.
We think this is especially important for our readers to hear, given that many of them are looking for cheaper drug alternatives online and unknowingly putting themselves in danger by taking counterfeit medications.
According to the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy close to 95% of online pharmacies offering prescription drugs are operating illegally.
The FDA is warning that many of these internet pharmacies that claim to sell medications at steep discounts without a prescription are often selling counterfeit, unsafe drugs.
The Department of Justice has found that many of the counterfeit medications sold through these online pharmacies often contain fentanyl and methamphetamine, which are synthetic opioids many times more powerful than heroin, risking overdose.
U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said: “The proliferation of fake online pharmacies is fueling this nation’s fentanyl epidemic. As alleged, Francisco Lopez Reyes, a/k/a “Frank,” and his lieutenants have run a global network of these websites and aggressively marketed, manufactured, sold, and distributed millions of deadly fentanyl pills meant to mimic legitimate prescription drugs."
The popularity of online pharmacies is largely driven by cost and convenience. According to the ASOP Foundation nearly 52% of Americans said they have used an online pharmacy and 24% of Americans have said they have "been exposed to harmful, counterfeit or substandard medication received from an online pharmacy."
According to the indictment, "for at least the last two and a half years, a network of individuals located in the U.S., the Dominican Republic, India, and elsewhere have exploited Americans’ reliance on online pharmacies by advertising, selling, manufacturing, and shipping through the mail millions of unregulated counterfeit prescription pills to tens of thousands of victims. Instead of prescription drugs at a bargain, what customers actually received were phony pills made of fentanyl, para-fluorofentanyl—an analogue of fentanyl—and methamphetamine. Shaped, dyed, and stamped to be indistinguishable from actual prescription medication, these tablets were in fact manufactured by the defendants in industrial-scale milling facilities, or pill mills, located in the basements of several residential buildings in, among other places, Manhattan and the Bronx, New York."
THE DANGERS OF ONLINE PHARMACY COUNTERFEIT MEDICATIONS
There are multiple dangers of taking counterfeit medications:
- You are getting a medication with ingredients that mimic your intended drug but are FAR more potent, dangerous and addictive.
- You are getting medications that lack the ingredient you are intending too get. As a result, your health condition may not be getting treated and may be getting worse, while you think it's getting better.
- You are getting medications with different dosages than you think you are getting, because the medications are not being manufactured in regulated, pharmaceutical grade facilities. As a result, you may getting too much or too little of a drug your doctor prescribed, which could result in serious health side effects.
- You are getting medications with impurities or additional ingredients. This can be especially dangerous if you are taking other medications that react poorly when taken in combination with certain medications, risking dangerous side effects.
HOW TO AVOID FAKE ONLINE PHARMACIES
Too help ensure you are ordering from a legal, safe online pharmacy, look for the following:
- A legal online pharmacy needs to be licensed in the state your are purchasing from (you can check if the online pharmacy is licensed in your state here)
- A legal pharmacy will ALWAYS require a doctor's prescription
- A legal pharmacy will have a physical address and phone number in the U.S. (but this can be faked)
- Has a state licensed pharmacist on staff to answer questions
- If the prices seem too low to be true, be weary
- If the medications come in colors, shapes or sizes different from what your used to
