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How safe is it to buy prescription drugs online?

Q: How safe is it to buy drugs online? A: Despite some reports to the contrary, it's actually quite safe, if done right. The Food and Drug Administration says it has received only a handful of reports of people getting sick or dying after buying prescription drugs over the Internet.

But even the few cases highlight the potential dangers. For example, the FDA learned about a 52-year-old Illinois man with a family history of heart disease who died of a heart attack last March after buying the impotence drug Viagra from an online source that required only answers to a questionnaire to qualify for the prescription. Although there is no proof linking the man's death to the drug, FDA officials say that if the man had seen a doctor first he might have avoided problems.

Online drug stores offer convenience of shopping from home and generally lower prices. Many traditional pharmacies including Rite Aid and CVS have gone online, so consumers should have the same confidence in them as in their brick-and-mortar stores, FDA officials say. Consumers should be wary, however, of what are called "rogue'' sites that sell unapproved drugs, or that sell prescription drugs without a prescription, bypassing any doctor-patient interaction.

"This practice undermines safeguards of a direct medical supervision and physical evaluation performed by a licensed health professional,'' says Jeffrey Shuren, M.D., medical officer in the Food and Drug Administration's Office of Policy, Planning and Legislation. "The Internet makes it easy to bypass this safety net.'' Last July, the Federal Trade Commission announced a program called "Operation Cure.All,'' which aims to stop bogus Internet claims for products and treatments touted as cures for various diseases. Over two years, the programme identified about 800 sites and numerous Usenet newsgroups containing questionable promotions.

Despite the hype and marketing, online prescriptions make up less than two percent of the nearly three billion prescriptions dispensed in the United States, according to the Internet research firm Jupiter Communications.

Lawmakers are debating whether new state or federal regulations are needed to oversee the rapidly growing field of online pharmacies. In the meantime, consumers can protect themselves by using online pharmacies that are certified by the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy's Verified Internet Pharmacy Practice Sites (VIPPS) programme.

VIPPS, a voluntary certification programme, provides consumers valuable information about the credentials of online pharmacies. The VIPPS seal attests that the online pharmacy has met a rigorous 17-point criteria review that considers patient confidentiality, security of prescriptions, a quality assurance programme, and patient-pharmacist consultation. Among those businesses awarded VIPPS certification: drugstore.com, merckmedco.com, cvs.com, familymeds.com and planetrx.com.