Te fairly new phenomenon of online pharmacies may soon be a thing of the past in The Bahamas if local pharmacists have their way.
The Bahama Journal has learnt that the Attorney General’s office is reviewing the Pharmacy Act and one of its recommendations reportedly involves banning Internet pharmacies which peddle everything from painkillers and drugs to improve the quality of life, to weight reducing tablets and tranquilizers.
The move comes after a number of online pharmacies have started catering to the Bahamian market, offering a growing list of drugs, such as Viagra, Levitra, Vioxx and Imitrex, among many others, that cost anywhere from $.78 to $16.40.
But local officials like Dr. Marvin Smith, the country’s representative at the Caribbean Association of Pharmacists (CAP) and for the Commonwealth Pharmacy Association (CPA), have stressed that while it might appear that online pharmacies offer a better deal when faced with the option of shelling out hefty sums for prescription medication, this practice comes with potential safety risks and buyers should beware.
“There are considerable problems inherent with online pharmacies. While technology has allowed us to do things a lot more quickly and efficiently, the practice of pharmacy is really so important to the patient – not just in terms of the product, but the information and relationship patients have with their pharmacists,” Dr. Smith explained.
“You can be filling a prescription on-line and you’re not really sure of where you’re getting the product from and who is actually dispensing, whether it’s a certified pharmacist. People can put anything on-line.”
According to Dr. Smith, an online pharmacy would typically have 20 to 30 different sites that would come back to the same Internet operation.
“You have to ask yourself, ‘If a person has to put up 30 different store names just to sell a product, what is the reason for this?’ One of the reasons really is that if the site does something wrong and it has to be closed down, it has 29 more sites it can operate from,” he said.
“And so you have to ask yourself if that’s really a reputable thing for a business to do.”
There is also the pitfall of on-line pharmacies purporting to sell branded and safe products.
“What we found with a lot of these companies is that a lot of these products were counterfeit, substandard, they may even be generic products that are approved or something totally different,” Dr. Smith said.
“We have had the opportunity to attend a number of seminars and we have seen people from Internet sites out of Asia and other places that bring these products that make them out of car garages, that are processing tablets with the cheapest things imaginable.”
According to Dr. Smith, some on-line drugs usually call for anti-freeze as an active ingredient.
Most brands of commercial anti-freeze consist of 95 percent ethylene glycol, an extremely toxic chemical to both humans and animals.
Dr Smith added that while many consumers would be quick to reason that it is cheaper to buy such drugs on-line, a number of surveys indicate otherwise.
“I think this is a fallacy, especially here in The Bahamas. The fact of the matter is that Bahamian drug prices are probably some of the cheapest for brand name products in the world,” he reasoned.
“There is no duty on drug products. They are medicines. There are some fees set up but not a whole lot. Secondly, the storage costs and other associated costs that are calculated in a price at a pharmacy, you would end up paying the same thing on shipping and handling. Besides this, is the money you may save worth the risk? There is a big trick that some of them use – that is taking expired drugs and slapping on new expiration dates. And so if something goes wrong with your product, do you really know who to run down?”
A number of pharmacists contacted by The Bahama Journal yesterday shared similar views on the subject.
Debra Lightbourne of Cole’s Thompson Pharmacy on Bay Street said that as far as she is concerned, on-line pharmacies are not safe.
“You might think it’s cheaper, that you’re getting a deal, but at what price?”
“It’s a fairly recent phenomenon here. But, they’re in the process of shutting these businesses down now in Canada,” explained Bruce Lowe, a pharmacist at Lowe’s Pharmacy Ltd, Palmdale branch.
“But persons thinking about getting these medications should be very, very careful. There is really no recourse for a counterfeit drug. You can’t get your money back in this sort of thing.”
However, he explained that on-line pharmacies ought not to be confused with the Internet services being offered by reputable companies like Walgreens and CVS in the United States.
“This is a different kettle of fish from what those persons are offering,” he emphasised.
“In this case, it’s the same as your calling in for a refill on the telephone. You would have to have a prescription and then you can just call in and ask for your refills on-line, which is a totally different idea from the Internet pharmacies.”
But the Bahamas Pharmaceutical Association (BPA) along with the Ministry of Health are not taking any chances.
“We have sent the government a proposal, which is being considered,” Dr. Smith revealed.
“The BPA is very optimistic. We have had meetings with the Minister and he has assured us that he has looked at it and that he is in agreement with the Act. It still has to be debated and there are things that still have to be modified, but the spirit of the Act is something that he is in agreement with and we’re looking forward to having that done in the very near future.”
By: Macushla N. Pinder, The Bahama Journal
