Missing Your Latest Order From That Online Pharmacy? Blame the FDA (And Maybe Interpol)

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)

is crowing over its recent seizure of insulin, glaucoma
medicine, and generic Viagra arriving from foreign pharmacies.
There may be e.
Coli in beef (again) and listeria
in everything, but at least nobody in America is getting any
hormones or erection drugs without proper approval.

Working in conjunction with U.S. Customs and Border Protection,
the FDA “conducted extensive examinations” at international mail
facilities based in Los Angeles, New York, and Chicago, ultimately
detaining or seizing 583 packages. “Preliminary findings” reveal
some of these to have contained hCG, insulin, estrogen, and generic
versions of Viagra, Cialis, and the glaucoma med Lumigan.

The meds were ordered by Americans from international online
pharmacies. The FDA says it “notified Internet service providers,
domain name registrars and related organizations that 1,975
websites were selling products in violation of U.S. law.”

Why do I believe it’s not going to stop there?

“When consumers buy prescription drugs from outside the
legitimate supply chain, they cannot know if the medicines they
receive are counterfeit or even if they contain the right active
ingredient in the proper dosages,” said Douglas Stearn, director of
the FDA‘s Office of Enforcement and Import Operations.

Presumably customers ordering from BestOnlinePharmacy.com know
that they’re not necessarily getting a doctor-approved and highly
regulated product. There are all sorts of reasons—lack of access to
medical care, cheaper prices online, wanting drugs that aren’t
available in the U.S. without a prescription or at all—why people
might deem this an acceptable tradeoff. 

The FDA and Customs’ efforts were apparently part of an
international initiative known as “Operation Pangea,” under which
representatives from 111 countries came together to “remove from
the supply” prescription drugs sold internationally through
Internet pharmacies.

Sponsored by Interpol, the globally coordinated searches and
seizures were in support of the “International Internet Week of
Action” and resulted in the detention or seizure of 19,618 packages
containing “unapproved or suspected counterfeit drugs” from
countries such as Australia, China, India, Malaysia, Mexico, New
Zealand, Singapore, Taiwan, and the U.K.