The upside of online shopping is that it puts the Internet’s full selection at your fingertips. The downside is that it’s harder to know exactly what you’re buying. When it comes to buying medicine, that downside can be deadly.
Illegal online pharmacies are a particularly dangerous and elusive sector of the growing problem of counterfeit drugs. The scope of the Internet compounds the rapid globalization of the drug supply chain and its increasingly dangerous misuse, making illegal sellers more difficult to trace.
As a result, major Internet players — including Google — are working with the federal government to battle the problem. Aiming to pinpoint and verify every alleged online pharmacy is near-impossible, so the focus is instead on limiting their use through consumer education, restricting their appearance in Internet searches, and enforcing harsher punishment.
Currently, 35,000 to 50,000 active Internet pharmacies are believed to be operating, and 97 percent of those surveyed do not meet U.S. standards, according to a 2013 report from the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy. This could mean they are not approved by the FDA, or that their pharmacists are not licensed by the state licensing board.
Google is now a member of the Center for Safe Internet Pharmacies, a nonprofit formed in 2011 with the mission of promoting secure online pharmacies through “education, enforcement, and information sharing.” This involves both limiting the visibility and accessibility of rogue sellers, and educating consumers about identifying safe online pharmacies.