While browsing the Internet, one may have noted that there are thousands of websites, which are selling medicines, drugs and other pharmaceutical products. These types of websites are called online pharmacy websites or online prescription website. To much extent they claim to be safe and ethical but the question to be raised is, ?is it really true?? Are they safe enough to be trusted by anyone who is looking for something genuine to cure his/her ailment? To be very fair, not all the communication between a consumer and an website are wrong. Neither all online drug websites are illegal.



There is usually no tension until the pharmacy websites leaves or skips the most important step of making sure that a physician who has written a prescription is familiar with the patient and his past medical history. But indeed, there is a problem with this type of selling of drugs over Internet. Recently, in the state of Texas in USA, the Texas State Board filed a complaint against a doctor who worked with the now-banned Web site, www.thepillbox.com. The Board suspected that the physician prescribed Viagra over the Internet to around 1,300 patients without knowing their medical history or any physical examination. Prescribing any drug in this way brings patients in a very high risk zone. In this article, we will try to discover answers to many questions like this and more specifically the safety and danger to customers from purchasing drugs online, and scan recent initiatives to check the online pharmacy and online drug prescription industry.

For those costumers who prefer to go to these online drug stores because of lower prices they are offered, convenience and privacy points. Since the prices of almost all drugs are lower in other counties than in their countries, these foreign pharmacy websites provides consumers a cheaper rate alternative. For example a consumer from Canada will pay 20-50 percent less than a consumer of America for all prescription drugs available on these online pharmacy websites. So it is not a surprise that it brings Canadian drug prices to the world and saves their consumers up to 50% on all the prescription drugs available. The most part of the costumers of these online pharmacy websites are the elderly people who prefer for convenience of ordering and getting drugs without going out of their home. So finally it can be said that these online pharmacy websites allow it's consumers to order the products they want and consult with a pharmacist in the privacy of their homes. Because and that is why the most popular drugs sold through internet pharmacies are the drugs used to improve lifestyle, which includes for erectile dysfunction, Propecia for hair loss, and Xenical for obesity.

Sometimes, anonymous consultation with a distant pharmacist is easier than a visit to the family doctor. While, supplying or sending drugs and medicines through Internet is illegal and justifiable, prescribing drugs on Internet bring a major health risk to the patients. At the websites that prescribes drugs, a patient gets a drug prescribed only by answering a questionnaire provided by the website. Through this questionnaire form patient can't tell every single detail about his health status and body's past medical history to the Internet pharmacist. This exposes patients to dangerous side effects from inappropriately prescribed medicines and dangerous drug interactions. Also this self diagnosis stops a patient from taking the correct and necessary medical treatment. Mostly websites like the ones trapped by the FDA in recent times was selling drugs without any prescription or any type of questionnaire. These types of online pharmacy websites and all the products sold on these websites can be called illegal, if guidelines given by FDA and WHO are reviewed. Moreover, there are certain other things to check while approaching an online pharmacy website. Some of them are; is the website you are about to buy medicines and drugs from, certified by square trade organization? If yes, it means that the website is declared legal for trade after many rounds of intensive tests and examinations. After this only, these websites are allowed to apply a logo of square trade on their pages. To see whether this logo is original or the work of an internet scam artist, you need to click on that logo, which will link you to the official website of square trade organization.

The other things are to check whether the online pharmacy website has hundred percent complete information of the drug they are selling. Are these online drug stores working in cooperation with the rules and regulations recommended by FDA and WHO? Whether they are not using outdated and expired medicines and are they using medicines and drugs manufactures by top pharmacy companies? For this they need to be certified by Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO). Whether they are keeping you very private and confidential? Are they selling drugs on comparatively lower costs and they are not taking chances with the patient's health to cover the loss done by these lowered prices?

Some consciousness and awareness and a little information is all that is needed by all consumers from preventing them from getting entangled into the trap of these online pharmacy websites and wasting their money, time and most important of all, their health. But it is very harsh and sad to say; very often people have nothing from consciousness and awareness and a little information.