LegitScript was invited to appear on Anderson Cooper (CNN) last night. The clip is here. (Go to minute 13…it’s at about 13:30 or so.) We talked about rogue Internet pharmacies, and how easy it is even for kids to get prescription drugs without a prescription. (If you need to talk to your kids about this, we have some helpful information here.)

LegitScript was invited to appear on the Prescription Addiction Radio show, a new weekly show in Tampa Bay, Florida, last night. You can download the file to listen to here.

It was a good discussion: LegitScript’s President pointed out some of the bad business practices engaged in by rogue Internet pharmacies that are dangerous, and noted the importance of balancing the very real need for access to necessary prescription medications with the need to address the prescription drug abuse and counterfeit drug problems.

LegitScript is glad to welcome Costco.com to our approved list of pharmacy Web sites. Costco is licensed and in good standing in all 50 states.

Costco’s pharmacy Web site is a good example of a national, well-known chain drug store that most certainly meets our definition of a legitimate Internet pharmacy. (But we recognize the smaller, community pharmacies, too!)

Welcome, Costco Pharmacy. We’re glad to add you to the list.

LegitScript is glad to welcome Costco.com to our approved list of pharmacy Web sites. Costco is licensed and in good standing in all 50 states.

Costco’s pharmacy Web site is a good example of a national, well-known chain drug store that most certainly meets our definition of a legitimate Internet pharmacy. (But we recognize the smaller, community pharmacies, too!)

Welcome, Costco Pharmacy. We’re glad to add you to the list.

LegitScript is glad to welcome Costco.com to our approved list of pharmacy Web sites. Costco is licensed and in good standing in all 50 states.

Costco’s pharmacy Web site is a good example of a national, well-known chain drug store that most certainly meets our definition of a legitimate Internet pharmacy. (But we recognize the smaller, community pharmacies, too!)

Welcome, Costco Pharmacy. We’re glad to add you to the list.

LegitScript is happy to welcome two Web sites to our legitimate list: TheApothecaryShop.com and SmartScript.com. (SmartScript is the refill site for The Apothecary Shops.)

The Apothecary Shops is the first compounding pharmacy that LegitScript has listed on our legit list. We took a careful look at their Web site, their operations, their licenses, their DEA registration, their application, how they accept prescription orders, and…

Anyway, we could go on. We looked carefully at TheApothecaryShops.com and feel good about designating them as a Web site that meets LegitScript pharmacy Web site standards, which are recognized by the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy.

If you’re looking for a good compounding pharmacy, check out our page about The Apothecary Shops.

To date, we’ve identified nearly 500 pharmacy Web sites that do not meet our standards. Of these, we’ve also classified quite a few as “rogue” Internet pharmacies — the worst of the worst. These aren’t pharmacy Web sites that are non-compliant with our standards on a technicality. Rather, they are (for example), located outside of the country, don’t require a prescription at all for prescription drugs, and may take your credit card information and run.

Who is LegitScript seeing over and over again that meets this criteria as a “rogue” Internet pharmacy? In first place as a contender we have an outfit that simply calls itself “Canadian Pharmacy,” and uses names like “abovethough.com.” So far, we’ve seen an exact replica of this Web site show up in about 100 domain names. (Extrapolated in consideration of all of our data, we think that this means that there are as many as 1,000 Web sites that link back to this outfit, if not more.)

Our friends over at KnujOn have let us know that this outfit is also responsible for a lot of the pharmaceutical spam out there.

So who is behind this?

It’s tough to tell. The domain registry system lists the owner of these websites as “Gaowei” in Zhengzhoushi, zhengzhou Henan. (That would be in China.) There is also a Chinese phone number affiliated with the Web site. Interestingly, Mr. Gao Wei lists his email contact information as “john.mike@hotmail.com.”

However, there’s one big wrinkle in finding out who actually wins our Rogue Internet Pharmacy Contest: when a person registers a Web site, there’s no requirement that it be truthful.

And that’s why we can’t give Mr. Gao Wei his Rogue Internet Pharmacy operator reward: we don’t know who he or she really is. One of these days, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, which oversees registrant issue, may want to take a look into that. But we do know that if you get a spam email from an outfit that purports to be a Canadian Pharmacy, you’d do well to avoid using them. Instead, take a look at LegitScript’s “legitimate Internet pharmacy list” for Web sites that we’ve reviewed and approved.