Online pharmacies a scam?

August 24, 2005 11:16 AM

Are online pharmacies a total scam? I'd like some tamiflu, but don't want my doctor to think I'm a tinfoil-hatted drug-seeking nutso.

I have found several pharmacies that say they will sell me tamiflu, but then require that they contact my doctor. I have found other pharmacies that will sell it without prescription, but not to the USA. I don't really have a primary care doc right now, and even if I did I think I'd have trouble asking them for the scrip because I would be afraid that they would think I was being paranoid. Which I am. I'm cool with being paranoid, I just would like to buy a small amount of the stuff to keep in the cabinet just in case.

So -- any pharmacies that will sell it to me genuinely without a prescription? Have any of you done this? That kind of luck did you have?

posted by anonymous to Health & Fitness (9 answers total)

If you're not afraid of appearing paranoid, then you shouldn't have any problem with a doctor thinking you're paranoid. While I've heard good things about some online pharmacies, I'd never trust one that was disreputable enough to sell prescription drugs without a prescription.
posted by Faint of Butt at 11:26 AM on August 24, 2005

I've seen a friend order succesfully from at least 2 different online pharmacies. General advice from said friend: look for drugs sold in tamper-resistant blister packs rather than loose in bottles. Compare what you recieve to photos on the manufacturer's website.
posted by 4easypayments at 12:16 PM on August 24, 2005

can you go to a different doctor to get the tamiflu prescription?
posted by clarahamster at 12:28 PM on August 24, 2005

Call a real doctor -- lots of people keep tamiflu on hand for perfectly normal reasons. Nobody thinks they're nutso. My father is prone to respiratory infections, and had a major conference to coordinate last winter. Getting sick was simply not. an. option. He called his doc, and got some tamiflu to keep on hand to stave off inconvenient illness. After all, it's meant to be taken in the first 24-48 hours of illness; acquring it BEFORE you get sick is the point.
posted by junkbox at 2:07 PM on August 24, 2005

For the sake of your own health, get over feeling awkward asking your doctor for ANYTHING. If you ask them for something that they feel is ill-advised, they will tell you and you can discuss it. If your doctor makes you feel stupid or is unwilling to have this kind of discourse with you, "fire" him. There's no shortage of docs out there and since that's the only body you have and are likely to get, if they are not interested in helping you maximize your use of it then fuck 'em.
posted by phearlez at 2:51 PM on August 24, 2005

I've bought Tamiflu, and if you look through my past MeFi comments, I've been pushing others to consider doing so for the past few months. I'm not a tin-foil hatter either, really! But I am immuno-suppressed, in the key 20-to-40-year-old age demographic that got hit so freakishly badly in the 1918-1919 flu epidemic, and live in a huge urban area known for having periodic riots. For those reasons, not to mention an unknown but presumed high infection and mortality rate and a lack of hospital surge capacity and beds in my state, a bird flu pandemic would be rilly rilly bad to go through. I may never need to use the Tamiflu, but owning a few boxes makes me feel a little safer, so that's a good enough reason for me.

Please note that nearly every online pharmacy is about to run out of stock; people are realizing that an influenza pandemic, probably a bird flu pandemic, will happen at some point. For reasons I outlined into in this AskMefi thread, there will not be a vaccine for a quite a while after an outbreak pops up. So Tamiflu's your only good bet, for now. And if you decide to order, either online or from your doctor, you'd best do it right away. Countries are buying up the drug as fast as Roche can make it, so you'll be competing for a scarce resource with people whose budgets are bigger than yours by several orders of magnitude.

The following list is copied from an e-mail I recently sent to another MeFi user who was wondering the exact same thing and e-mailed me for suggestions. I have no financial interest in these companies/websites; all are known to carry Tamiflu:

#1: http://www.drugdelivery.ca/
Canadian pharmacy that ships Tamiflu from, I think, Turkey. Good telephone customer service, but they have a big backlog on Tamiflu orders, almost a month. I suspect they'll be out of stock shortly.

#2: http://www.meds4yourhealth.com/
American company, I think? Ships Tamiflu from Switzerland (presumably direct from the people at Roche in Switzerland, which is the only company that makes the drug). Probably the cheapest place to buy it. Don't combine a Tamiflu order with other orders or it may get rejected.

#3: http://www.pharmaenergy.com/
West Indies site that ships products from Europe. Haven't used it.

If you want to follow other bird flu developments, check out these two bulletin boards for daily updates. Some of the people who post there are a little alarmist and maudlin, but there are some highly respected doctors, public health officials, and other health care workers from several countries who post there and are worth reading.

http://discuss.agonist.org/yabbse/index.php?board=6

http://www.curevents.com/vb/forumdisplay.php?f=40

And now that I've completely tarred myself with the big "wacky paranoiac" brush, I'm going to just hit "post" and shut up. :-)
posted by Asparagirl at 2:58 PM on August 24, 2005

A note about site #1 listed above: I see that they now list two possible places you can order Tamiflu from, New Zealand and Europe. The "Europe" is Turkey.
posted by Asparagirl at 3:14 PM on August 24, 2005

I built a website for a New Zealand pharmacist, he sells to people all over the world, and is completely legit. In fact, one of the most professional clients I've ever had. And I'm still saying that even now that his site is being maintained (and mangled, it's ugly - now.) by someone in Australia.

So some online pharmacies are definitely not scams.

I'd link to my old client's site, but he doesn't seem to carry Tamiflu (Oseltamivir Phosphate) in any form. He even had free shipping world wide. Who can ask for better than that?

Faint of Butt: "I'd never trust one that was disreputable enough to sell prescription drugs without a prescription."
I'm sure that's true if you're ordering from a local pharmacy. I'm not sure how helpful it is in the international context, as not all countries have the same laws, here in New Zealand we have some drugs which can be sold anywhere (aspirin, paracetamol, that sort of thing) and some which require a prescription from a doctor, but we have another category of drugs that can be sold only by pharmacies, but which don't require a prescription.
posted by The Monkey at 7:34 PM on August 24, 2005

Bear in mind that the shelf life of Tamiflu is 36 months and that the storage requirements are rather strict: 59 to 86 degrees F.

Pharmaceuticals aren't like #10 cans of pinto beans; when their shelf life is up, you should generally throw them out.
posted by ikkyu2 at 9:42 PM on August 24, 2005 [1 favorite]