This blog post is the first in a two part series.
It’s summer, a perfect time to reflect on our members and their efforts to combat rogue online pharmacies and educate consumers. Below is a recap of their hard work, and the positive developments in their fight against illicit online pharmacies:
- The Alliance for Safe Online Pharmacies (ASOP Global), Center for Safe Internet Pharmacies (CSIP) and National Consumers League (NCL) joined forces to educate seniors and their caregivers about the health and financial risks associated with buying prescription medicines from illegal or rogue online pharmacies.
- Five of the six largest domain name registrars, including our members, GoDaddy and Rightside, have key policies to address the challenge of illegal online pharmacies, via the report we commissioned that was prepared by LegitScript, titled “The Internet Pharmacy Market in 2016: Trends, Challenges and Opportunities.”
- Bing (Microsoft) rolled out a set of warnings to caution users who click on an illegitimate online pharmacy of the risks and to provide resources to help them
- We worked with the Alliance for Safe Online Pharmacies to facilitate dialogue in Cebu, Philippines with 19 economies from three continents on the topic of illegitimate online drug sellers
- Google alone has removed more than 3 million ads for illegal pharmacies and has made thousands of referrals to law enforcement about rogue online pharmacies since 2011.
CSIP is grateful for our members’ hard work, and collaboration with partners and law enforcement. We are encouraged by their continued efforts to educate the public and to ultimately make online pharmacies safer for consumers.
For the second blog post in this series, click here.
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The Center for Safe Internet Pharmacies (CSIP) and our 11 member companies have the shared goal of helping address the growing problem of consumer access to illegitimate pharmaceutical products on the Internet. Continue to read this blog for updates on CSIP’s education, enforcement and information-sharing efforts.