FDA reports most websites selling Canadian drugs are not in Canada

FDA commissioned study which investigated the approximately 11,000 web sites on the web claiming to sell Canadian prescription drugs and found fewer than 2 percent are actually based in Canada.

The study also found that around 10% were true online stores and those that were originated in places such as the United States, Barbados, Mexico, the Czech Republic, Southeast Asia, Eastern Europe and El Salvador. What is so disturbing is that websites located in may of these countries do not have the government scrutiny and oversight to guarantee quality of the pharmaceuticals as the United States or Canada does.

American consumers are going in droves to Canadian Pharmacies to get their prescription drugs as prices keep going up in the US.

Many US consumers feel safe buying drugs from their neighbor up north since Canadian drugs have similar quality control as their US counterparts and even though it is illegal to import any prescriptions drugs into the US, the FDA has been usually turning a blind eye to those who are importing medicine for their own use. Consumer groups have been fighting the FDA to allow importation of drugs for personal use, but this new study only provides more ammunition for the FDA.

Todd Bransford from the Virginia-based company Cyveillance Inc. who are the people that the FDA commissioned to perform the study said "The reason people are going to Canadian sites in this country is to buy cheaper drugs. Now, if a consumer goes to a fake Canadian pharmacy that's based in the US and the drugs are still cheaper, that's a pretty good indication that there's something wrong with those drugs".

Food and Drug Administration director of pharmacy affairs Tom McGinnis commented "We worry about the deception because if these pharmacies are in Southeast Asia someplace, the quality and purity of the drugs may not be the same as what they're get from their state licensed pharmacy. They might not act the same way in the body, and they could be dangerous.". He went on to say "If they're really not Canadian pharmacies, they're fooling American consumers who might believe drugs in Canada-a pretty good assumption--are just as good as the drugs they get in the U.S.," McGinnis said that the FDA plans to test the medicines sold from some of the more suspicious websites.

The FDA is warning consumers that they should be extremely cautions if the web site selling "Canadian" drugs has prices far to low below market rates, unfamiliar packaging, grammatical errors on the website or the packaging of the drugs or unusual drug dosages. Another indication of a possible problem is web sites that cannot be reached through a search engines and only through clicking on links in spam e-mails.