There are so many dangers of buying prescription medication online and you can probably think of a few right off the top of your head right now. The most obvious being you don’t have a trusted pharmacist giving or checking your drugs. That is an obvious one but we are going to tell you some of the immediate problems with buying prescription medication online.
Where can you buy prescription medication online?
Normally prescription medication is bought at “online pharmacies”. Online pharmacies are websites that sell prescription and over-the-counter drugs that may or may not be safe to use and could put your health at risk. The best ways to avoid the dangers of buying prescription medication online are to be able to recognize legal internet pharmacies or just go to your local pharmacy.
Dangers of buying prescription medication online
Buying prescription medication online from a company you don’t know means you don’t know what you will be getting. There are multiple online pharmacies that operate legally and they offer conveniences, privacy and safeguards for buying medicines. But there also tons of “shady websites” that offer to sell potentially dangerous prescription medicines that have not been checked for safety or effectiveness. These “rogue websites” will look professional and they will also look legitimate, all the while they are an illegal operating online pharmacy and there are numerous dangers of buying prescription medicine from them. Dangerous online pharmacies selling prescription medication online will most often sell unapproved medicines or medicines that contain the wrong active ingredients. Some of the other dangers of buying prescription medication online are that online pharmacies will also sell drugs that contain too little or too much of the active ingredient too.
Many people who buy prescription medication online instead of receiving the drug they ordered, they received products containing what was identified as foreign versions of their drug. As a result these people had to seek medical treatment for their symptoms which could have ended up deadly.
One of the biggest dangers of buying prescription medication online is that the websites will sell counterfeit drugs that look exactly like the real FDA-approved medicines but the quality and safety of the drugs are totally unknown.
If you are going to buy prescription medication online here are some ways to make sure you aren’t in any danger:
- If the online pharmacy is located in the United States
- It is a licensed online pharmacy by the state board of pharmacy where the website is operating. You can find the list of boards on the Internet by searching for the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy.
- It has a licensed pharmacist available to answer your questions
- It requires a prescription for prescription medications from your doctor or another health care profession who is licensed to prescribe medicines.
- It provides contact information and allows you to talk to a person if you have problems or questions.
Here are some of the ways to spot a dangerous online pharmacy:
- It sends you drugs with unknown quality and/or origin
- It gives you the wrong drug or another dangerous product for your illness
- It doesn’t provide any way to contact the website by phone
- It may offer to sell prescription drugs without a prescription-this is illegal
- It may or may not protect your personal information
- It offers prices significantly cheaper than the competition
The dangers of buying prescription medications online all lie in the fact that the drugs could be counterfeit or contaminated. This is why you should know your medicines before buying from an online pharmacy. Counterfeit drugs can be contaminated, lead to dangerous side effects, contain the wrong active ingredient, be made with the wrong amounts of ingredients, or contain no active ingredient or not enough of it. All of this can be very dangerous to you who need the medicine. These are the problems and dangers of buying prescription medication online.
Source:
http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/buying-prescription-drugs-online/GA00042