Reliability of online pharmacies.

November 19, 2004 9:32 PM

OnlinePharmacyFilter: I am interested in buying a certain pharmaceutical for my own off-label use (which is known to be safe and effective). I would rather not deal with a doctor to obtain a prescription -- I don't at the moment have a primary care provider I trust -- and this drug appears to be readily available at any number of Web pharmacies, with few questions asked. Does anyone have experience with online drug sellers? Are these vendors reliable at all? I am skeptical, of course, and do wonder whether I'll end up with a bottle of sugar pills, or worse. (I saw a recent news report, on 60 Minutes, I think, about the global market in fake products, including brand name drugs, in which a fugazy Viagra pill made in China was shown to be indistinguishable from the real thing.) (On the other hand, CVS-bought, doctor-prescribed brand name drugs are not necessarily to be trusted either. And Vioxx is, I'm sure, just the tip of that industry iceberg. Nonetheless...) Am I crazy to buy drugs on the Web?

(Heck, it sue has been a long time since High School, when it never would have occurred to me to ask what was in the drugs I was taking, where they were from, or if they were "safe" or "pure"...)
posted by jellybuzz to Shopping (8 answers total)

Everything I know about online pharmacies, I learned from a powerpoint presentation given to a special committee of the New York State Assembly that I sat in on.

In this presentation, photos were shown of proprietors of many web sites which sell drugs, along side their other sites, and in a few cases rap sheets.

Most of the photos were captioned, in a menacing font "KNOWN PORNOGRAPHER"

So look out for fake drugs full of Erototoxins. (Or, by being addictive, would they become real drugs?)
posted by TTIKTDA at 9:44 PM on November 19, 2004

I'm in the same position as you in terms of not having a regular doctor and not wanting to get one. I've ordered pharmaceuticals on the web and encountered no problems. The drug I ordered was Vioxx, so maybe it wasn't such a smart idea in the long run. One thing I found was that prices seemed higher than what I would have paid with a normal prescription at a regular pharmacy.
posted by tzuzie at 9:44 PM on November 19, 2004

[see also]
posted by 4easypayments at 10:03 PM on November 19, 2004

Response by poster: Well thank you, 4easy, that post was almost identical to mine, right down to the "OnlinePharmacyFilter" quip (and I thought I was being clever, or at least original ;), and I hadn't seen it.

TTIKTDA, that is scary. But then not surprising, I suppose.

(tzuzie, I was going to say you might have been better off if the Vioxx you bought online turned out to be fake. But on second thought, that's not even funny.)
posted by jellybuzz at 11:04 PM on November 19, 2004

Yeah, um, jellybuzz? Please do a search next time. It's not that you didn't see it, it's that you didn't look for it.
posted by Mo Nickels at 6:01 AM on November 20, 2004

Some of the folks over at Fatwallet.com have reported good results dealing with Jupiter Pharmacy, an Indian online pharmacy. I have not ordered from them myself.
posted by LarryC at 9:36 AM on November 20, 2004

I haven't used an online pharmacy in years (what can I say, I'm an early adopter...) but I didn't have any problems with the drugs as far as I can tell. I don't know if I would have known if they were bogus but they seemed to be legit. Made for a spanish-speaking market rather than an english one but legit nonetheless.

If I can make one suggestion, it would be to pay for everything with a credit card and process a chargeback within the 60 or 90 day period if you think anything was not as it should be. Credit cards protect you just for situations like this. Well maybe not situations just like this.
posted by pwb503 at 12:23 PM on November 20, 2004

Most of the photos were captioned, in a menacing font "KNOWN PORNOGRAPHER"

what the? what year is this?
posted by fishfucker at 2:06 PM on November 20, 2004