Internet Purchase of Prescription Drugs: Buyer Beware

The growth of the Internet in recent years has created countless opportunities for patients to access health-related information, products, and services. The Internet offers convenience and privacy for persons buying on-line while providing expanded access to prescription drugs and health care practitioners. Through the Internet, the disabled, the elderly, and patients living in remote areas can easily obtain information, products, and services that were previously acquired only with great difficulty.

In this issue, Bloom and Iannacone (1) discuss the problems presented by purchasing prescription drugs over the World Wide Web. The authors identified 37 sites that sold primarily sildenafil (Viagra, Pfizer, New York, New York) and finasteride (Propecia, Merck, West Point, Pennsylvania) and required a prescription from an on-line consultant or a personal physician. Although these sites are convenient, this benefit comes with a higher price tag and limited accountability. Bloom and Iannacone found that the average cost of purchasing these drugs on-line was higher than at Philadelphia pharmacies and that the average cost of receiving an on-line consultation was higher than for a general practice visit in the Philadelphia area. In addition, fewer than 11% of the sites provided the actual location of the business, and none provided the name, specialty, location, or qualifications of the consulting physicians.

Although consumers risk paying more for a drug bought on-line, both consumers and practitioners should be aware of more ominous dangers posed by Internet drug purchases. Long before the development of the Internet, the U.S. Congress and state legislatures …