Are prescriptions from Canada or internet pharmacies safe?

As the price of prescription drugs continue to rise, consumers are always looking for ways to save money on their medications. One such method that has become increasingly popular is to obtain medications from Internet pharmacies or prescriptions from Canada.

The problem with obtaining prescriptions in this fashion is that the medications you receive could contain the wrong medication, contain no active ingredients, or be contaminated with lead/other toxic agents.

Although many of the Internet pharmacy sites look authentic and reputable, there is no regulation at a state or federal level of these entities. So the prescription you think is coming from Canada may be coming from China, Russia, etc. The prescription does not need to be filled by a pharmacist and their is no recourse for the consumer if the wrong/counterfeit medication is dispensed.

Audits by the state of Minnesota and Wisconsin of a Canadian internet pharmacy pointed out significant safety problems, such as:

• several pharmacies used unsupervised technicians to enter medication orders and to try to clarify prescriptions
• one pharmacy had its pharmacists review 100 new prescriptions or 300 refill prescriptions per hour (a typical safe number is around 10-20 prescriptions per hour);
• one pharmacy failed to label its products, instead it shipped the labels unattached in the same shipping container, even to patients who received multiple medications
• drugs requiring refrigeration were being shipped un-refrigerated;
• dispensing medications that had been recalled or removed from the market by the FDA;
• dispensing expired medications

The bottom line is that the potential cost savings of using these pharmacies does not outweigh the significant risks to consumers.