Foreign Drugs: What You Need to Know
Foreign Drugs: What You Need to Know
By Congressman Henry Bonilla
In January of 2001, I was appointed chairman of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies. As Chairman, I am responsible for oversight of funding for the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), all of our nation's agriculture programs and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). In this role, I have discovered many troubling facts about imported drugs. We all want to save money and the price of prescription drugs can be high, but you need to ask yourself, is it worth your life?
Due to the rigorous controls mandated by the FDA, the overall quality of drug products that consumers purchase from accredited pharmacies in the United States is remarkably high. Due to these high standards, American consumers are confident in the safety and effectiveness of FDA approved medicines. However, medicines sold by foreign sources cannot be regulated and therefore, are not subjected to the same approval process. Trusting medicines from foreign sources exposes consumers to countless unknown risks.
Recently, the FDA has identified numerous websites offering to sell prescription drugs directly to U.S. consumers from, what they claim to be, legal Canadian sources. These websites are fraudulent plain and simple. These websites claim it is legal for Canadian pharmacies to sell medication to American consumers. False. Often these websites claim the prescriptions are rewritten by a Canadian doctor and filled by a certified Canadian pharmacist. These claims are bogus as well. Writing prescriptions and then dispensing medication when the physician has not examined the patient is not only in direct violation of medical ethics and standards, it is dangerous. Consumers are at risk of suffering life threatening side effects, having severe allergic reactions, suffering from harmful drug interactions or even taking inappropriately prescribed medications.
We warn our children not to eat candy from a stranger, but then trust a website with our own health? The truth is you have no idea what you will receive when you purchase medications from foreign sources. The drugs may be past their expiration date, counterfeit or even improperly manufactured products that are either too-potent or watered down. Consumers who have adverse reactions to foreign medications have little or no recourse. They may even sign product liability releases in order to purchase these dangerous drugs. Reactions to these medications can even be fatal.
As a rule of thumb, the FDA advises American consumers to avoid buying any medical products online, no matter how reputable the website may appear. You simply do not know where these medications are coming from. In 2005, the FDA conducted an operation at New York, Miami, and Los Angeles airports in order to intercept medications being shipped to American consumers. An astounding 85 percent of the drugs being imported to American consumers from what they believed were legitimate pharmacies in Canada were actually from 27 other countries around the globe. Buying prescription drugs from websites only guarantees you are getting substances of unknown origin, dubious safety and questionable effectiveness.
The FDA is aggressively pursuing drug counterfeiters and investigating foreign, online drug sources. You can do your part by purchasing your prescription medications and products through an FDA certified pharmacy. It is not worth losing your life to save a few bucks.
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