As our readers may know, LegitScript has identified Internet pharmacies that sell prescription drugs not in accordance with US federal or state laws, and the entities that facilitate, advocate for or profit from those websites. Among these is an Internet pharmacy verification company no longer used by major search engines called PharmacyChecker, a company that advocates for Internet pharmacies that do not operate in accordance with US federal and state pharmacy and drug safety laws.
As the search engines have taken positive steps to require Internet pharmacy advertisers to adhere to stricter legal standards, PharmacyChecker has publicly blamed LegitScript for the discontinuation of its relationship with the search engines. While untrue, LegitScript does assist Google with Internet pharmacy monitoring. In retaliation, PharmacyChecker has recently launched a defamation campaign based on false information against LegitScript, including personal attacks against our company’s President.
LegitScript’s approach has been to try to rise above the mudslinging. We regret having to respond at all, but welcome the opportunity to set the record straight.
PharmacyChecker and its relationships with illegal Internet pharmacies
In the months before PharmacyChecker lost its recognition from the major search engines, it was revealed via multiple sources that PharmacyChecker had approved, as part of its paid program, Internet pharmacies that were selling prescription drugs not in accordance with legal requirements, including without a prescription. Some of this information was exposed by LegitScript. Some examples:
- CNN exposed pharmnet.com, a PharmacyChecker-approved Internet pharmacy, the ads for which redirected to pages within pharmnet.com selling controlled substances without requiring a valid prescription. (Incredibly, in a subsequent email to LegitScript, PharmacyChecker’s Vice-President, Gabriel Levitt, argued that because after the controlled substance was selected for purchase on pharmnet.com customers would then be directed to a payment website called “rx-checkout.net,” pharmnet.com itself could not have been known to be acting illicitly.)
- LegitScript was interviewed on CNN about LiveWellRx.com, which sold us an addictive prescription drug (Soma) without a prescription despite the fact that we posed as a 13-year old. The website was PharmacyChecker approved at the time we conducted the test buy.
- On its own website, PharmacyChecker listed shopeastwest.com as PharmacyChecker-approved, despite the fact that the website was selling drugs without requiring a prescription from overseas. This was exposed by LegitScript.
Previously undisclosed rogue Internet pharmacy websites approved by PharmacyChecker
LegitScript has documented other PharmacyChecker-approved Internet pharmacy websites selling or facilitating the sale of unregulated drugs without a prescription over the last couple of years. We have not made these public, but today, will start with one additional, not-previously-disclosed example.
The graphic to the left is a PharmacyChecker Seal of Approval for tenpharmastores.com. While the website was PharmacyChecker-approved, it referred Internet users to websites offering controlled substances such as Vicodin without a prescription. (Note that the website’s content has changed since then.) Our analysis indicated that the website remained PharmacyChecker approved for about nine months, enabling the website to advertise with the major search engines.
LegitScript has documented other similar activity by other PharmacyChecker-approved websites. LegitScript reserves the right to make that information public if future baseless allegations and defamatory blogposts are made against LegitScript, and if existing false publications are not corrected.
Simply put, websites like tenpharmastores.com were a source of revenue for PharmacyChecker, which in turn enabled those illicit websites to advertise with the search engines and sell unregulated pharmaceuticals, including controlled substances without a prescription. This profitable arrangement is no longer available, due in part to LegitScript’s role in documenting the illegal activity of websites like livewellrx.com and tenpharmastores.com that had been approved by PharmacyChecker as part of its paid program.
False Statements by PharmacyChecker
PharmacyChecker has made other false allegations, including a recent one that LegitScript has approved Internet pharmacies with “rogue affiliations” in violation of our own standards. The allegation is false and unsupportable, and the pharmacy websites mentioned do not violate LegitScript or NABP standards, nor is LegitScript’s approach inconsistent.
The basis of PharmacyChecker’s allegation is that numerous Internet pharmacies in our database purchase prescription drugs from Cardinal Health, a licensed national wholesaler that sells drugs to thousands of pharmacies nationwide. Cardinal Health supplied pharmaceuticals to two Tulsa-area hospital pharmacies (neither approved by LegitScript) where pharmacy employees stole or diverted pharmaceuticals between 2005 and 2008 (an incident that PharmacyChecker incorrectly states was “discovered” in 2010, when it was clearly earlier). Cardinal Health paid a fine because of inadequate supply control on two occasions.
PharmacyChecker points to LegitScript’s 11th standard, which states:
Affiliated websites. The pharmacy, website, pharmacy staff, domain name registrants, and any person or entity that exercises control over, or participates in, the pharmacy business must not be affiliated with or control any other website that violates these standards.
This is not a serious argument. PharmacyChecker appears not to understand the nature of the rogue Internet pharmacy world, in which illicit pharmaceutical suppliers rely heavily on affiliate networks (which is what “affiliation” refers to) to propagate hundreds of similar websites offering unregulated drugs. That isn’t what’s happening here. In fact, PharmacyChecker declined to identify the websites in question. We challenge PharmacyChecker to do so. We predict that they will not (or cannot) do so, because it knows that it can’t survive a defamation lawsuit from those pharmacies by implying that they have “rogue connections.”
In short, after approving numerous rogue Internet pharmacies itself, PharmacyChecker looked through our database (which is public) to try and find a mistake we’d made; couldn’t turn up anything; and this was the best they could do.
More False Statements or Accusations by PhamacyChecker
PharmacyChecker has made other false accusations. Several seem to emanate from an unfounded theory that PharmacyChecker is the victim of a secret, wide-ranging conspiracy by the federal government and pharmaceutical companies, all orchestrated by LegitScript. Consider:
PharmacyChecker false statement. LegitScript is a front for or is funded by pharmaceutical companies, and as such, lacks independence.
The truth. As we have stated on numerous occasions, LegitScript is an Internet start-up funded 100% (yes, one hundred percent) by our staff. We accepted no outside investment at all. As with many start-ups, for the first couple of years, we had no revenue except that which came from our own pockets. LegitScript staff owns 100% of the company, and no investment or funding has ever come from any third party, including any pharmacy, pharmaceutical wholesaler, manufacturer, or any similar entity. On no occasion has LegitScript or anyone associated with it ever accepted any grant, gift, funding, endowment, donation, contribution, or any sort of investment whatsoever from any third party.
PharmacyChecker apparently finds it difficult to believe that an Internet pharmacy verification service can truly be independent, not bought off by part of the industry. Indeed, LegitScript does not accept any money from pharmacies that we approve; PharmacyChecker does, including those that are not in compliance with federal and state regulations.
Other false statements. PharmacyChecker has made a number of other false statements regarding LegitScript implying that:
- LegitScript’s President set up a lobbying firm to lobby for corporate (impliedly pharmaceutical company) clients last year. This is simply false. There isn’t anything remotely true about it.
- That while in government, LegitScript’s President “switched the focus of a government report” to target PharmacyChecker at the best of “big pharmaceutical interests.” This is false. It’s true that a government letter from a White House senior official to a member of Congress identified PharmacyChecker as not being a “reliable” verification service. The letter clearly indicates that it came from the nation’s Drug Czar and was developed in coordination with the DEA and FDA, which concurred with the assessment of PharmacyChecker’s unreliability.
- That LegitScript’s President, while in government, “misused his government position” to advocate for LegitScript. Again, false. LegitScript’s President left his government position effective April 27, 2007; LegitScript was not officially formed until weeks after that, and legitscript.com’s website did not even go “live” until more than a year later.
Wrap-up
LegitScript regrets the necessity to respond to this disinformation, but believes it is important to set the record straight.
LegitScript is the only Internet pharmacy verification service recognized by the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy and is a founding member of the Alliance for Safe Online Pharmacies. We have no financial relationship with the pharmacies we review. PharmacyChecker is not NABP-recognized, and because it operates a for-payment Internet pharmacy verification program, it has a financial relationship with the Internet pharmacies it approves, whether the website is licit or illicit.
PharmacyChecker is understandably upset that LegitScript played a role in exposing their approval of websites like pharmnet.com, livewellrx.com, tenpharmastores.com, and others that sold unregulated pharmaceuticals and/or prescription drugs without a prescription. Earlier this year, the three major search engines announced that PharmacyChecker approval would no longer be recognized by their respective ad programs. This has resulted in PharmacyChecker’s program having less value and presumably less revenue. Additionally, the foreign Internet pharmacies that PharmacyChecker is aligned with (and concedes are not considered legal by the FDA) have lost the ability to advertise online in the US.
This explains, but does not justify, the launching of a disinformation campaign. PharmacyChecker is promoting the view that it is the victim of a massive conspiracy by the federal government and “big pharmaceutical companies”, all orchestrated by LegitScript in order to “deny Americans safe, inexpensive medications.” This is paranoid nonsense that has no place in reasonable debate. If PharmacyChecker is a victim, it is a victim of its own inability or unwillingness to distinguish between pharmacy websites that dispense prescription drugs in the US in accordance with Federal and state laws, and those that do not.