Web pharmacies put people's lives at risk, think-tank concludes
People's lives are at risk unless the Government does something to prevent prescription medicines being sold via the internet without proper safeguards or controls. This is the conclusion of a seminar hosted by the Centre
for Reform think-tank.
Nick Bromley, director of health research at the Centre for Reform, said: “It
must be a matter of most urgent concern that people can obtain heroin
substitutes over the internet by simply using a search engine, or that
they can obtain the more old-fashioned anti-depressants which may have
dangerous side effects for some people without any supervision.”
The report argues for a simple, consumer friendly procedure that people
can use to check whether the medicines they buy via the internet are
coming from legitimate sources.
Simon Williams, director of policy at the Patients’ Association,
said: “If people do not have a simple and quick way of being able
to check if an online pharmacy is legitimate they will simply not check
before ordering and will be putting their health at serious risk. Regulators
must address this matter now.”
A report of the seminar says that the Royal Pharmaceutical Society is
working on a logo that legitimate UK pharmacy websites could use to indicate
that they are properly
registered.
“It would be important that patients could also check this easily
and quickly via a link to the register,” the report adds. However,
it warns that criminals would have no scruples about copying the logo
and that it would need wide publicity so that people knew that they should
look for it on pharmacy websites.
The seminar also questioned whether Government agencies were putting
sufficient effort into closing down rogue websites quickly. “This
is an area where constant harassment of the unscrupulous is necessary,” the
report says. |
The
Pharmaceutical Journal
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