E-drug: E-Commerce and pharmaceutical drugs
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A year ago the US FDA was pressuring the World Health Organization
against restrictive rules on Internet marketing of pharmaceutical
drugs. But in the US, there is pressure from some quarters to deal
with unregulated sales of pharmaceutical drugs over the Internet.
Jamie
http://www.news.com/News/Item/0,4,34464,00.html?st.ne.180.head
Drugstores want crackdown on rogue sites
By Tim Clark
Staff Writer, CNET News.com
March 30, 1999, 5:45 p.m. PT
Several leading online pharmacies, eager to set themselves apart from
"fly-by-night" operations that skirt legality and ignore standard
medical practices, are calling for a crackdown on unethical Net
drugstores.
Soma.com today urged stricter enforcement of existing laws, and was
quickly joined by two competitors, PlanetRx and Drugstore.com, which
also back efforts to crack down on online pharmacies that aren't
following regulations.
[snip]
The call for tighter regulation comes as a variety of health
professionals, pharmacy trade groups, and legislators decry abuses of
laws regulating prescription drugs.
[snip]
Mainstream Internet pharmacies like Soma.com say they're worried that
publicity about fly-by-night operators will hurt their business. An
episode of the ABC television show "20-20" last night ran a story about
a man who died after obtaining medication through an online pharmacy on a
prescription written from an online consultation.
Earlier this month, members of the House Commerce Committee released a
letter in which it asked the General Accounting Office, Congress's
investigative arm, to assess the scope of the Internet-based
pharmaceutical market and determine how many
prescriptions were being dispensed without a doctor's consultation.
The Food and Drug Administration also requested help from the Federal
Trade Commission in monitoring and identifying Web sites that prescribe
or dispense prescription drugs illegally. Reportedly some 30 Web sites
sell Viagra or black-market versions of the drug online.
[snip]
--
James Love, Director, Consumer Project on Technology
I can be reached at love@cptech.org, by telephone 202.387.8030,
by fax at 202.234.5176. CPT web page is http://www.cptech.org
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