Your Health and Safety

There are literally thousands of pharmacy websites that purport to be legitimate, but violate federal or state laws or accepted standards of medical and pharmacy practice.

To determine which Internet pharmacies are legitimate and which are not, LegitScript uses standards that have been recognized by the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy. Pharmacies that display the LegitScript seal of approval have agreed to adhere to Boards of Pharmacy, Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), and Food and Drug Administration (FDA) laws and regulations.

Are Canadian Internet pharmacies safe?

Some Internet users have asked why we do not approve foreign pharmacies, including those in Canada. There is a common misperception that “Canadian” Internet pharmacies are just as safe as brick-and-mortar pharmacies in the United States or in Canada. In many cases, they are not.

In order to drive costs down, some “Canadian” pharmacy websites sometimes maintain an office with a pharmacist in Canada, but acquire drugs from India, China or Turkey, and circumvent both American and Canadian drug safety laws. It is difficult for the Canadian authorities to respond, because the drugs may not enter Canada at any point in time.

Additionally:

• Some prescription drugs imported from foreign countries including Canada have turned out to be counterfeit.
• A 2005 FDA operation found that nearly half of the imported drugs intercepted from India, Israel, Costa Rica, and Vanuatu were shipped to fill orders that consumers believed were placed with “Canadian” pharmacies. Of the drugs being promoted as “Canadian,” 85 percent came from 27 countries around the globe.
• In August 2006, the FDA warned that RxNorth.com, a company based in Manitoba, Canada, was shipping counterfeit medications from other countries to American consumers who were ordering medications through the RxNorth and affiliated websites.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has advised that importing prescription drugs from outside of the United States is, in nearly all cases, a violation of Federal law. For those reasons, LegitScript does not approve Canadian Internet pharmacy websites.

What about pharmacy websites that prescribe a drug online, using an online questionnaire?

The National Association of Boards of Pharmacy, Federation of State Medical Boards, and LegitScript do not consider “online consultations” (receiving a prescription online through a “virtual diagnosis” from a physician that has never examined the patient) to be safe medical or pharmaceutical practice.

• With an “online diagnosis” or “online consultation,” you can’t always be sure that there is really a physician on the other end of the Internet.
• An “online consultation” does not include the ability for a physician to take blood pressure, listen to the heart and lungs, adequately discuss medical history, or perform many other important patient safety functions.
• These sites typically charge more than legitimate Internet pharmacies – just for the ability to avoid seeing a physician.