The dangers of internet pharmacies

In today's economy everyone is looking to save every penny possible.  I am no exception.  I love being able to have people take advantage of the free antibiotics at Publix or $4 and $10 generic drugs at WalMart or Target, but let the buyer beware when hunting for a bargin.  As much as I would like to believe in the inner goodness of all people, there are a lot of people out there that make that difficult.  Scams and cons abound in today's society and the Internet has made it even easier because you can scam someone from thousands of miles away in a different country where it would be almost impossible to catch you. 

There are hundreds or even thousands of pet medication pharmacies on the Internet and according to the NABP (National Association of  Boards of Pharmacies) at least 96% of them are fake.  World-wide drug counterfeiting is a 32 BILLION dollar industry and the Internet pharmacies are their main store fronts.  They are not run by licensed pharmacists, they do not acquire their drugs from legitimate sources, they are not located in the United States to be regulated by the FDA, and many of them are selling counterfeit, adulterated, or contaminated drugs .  It may look like the same product you get from your vet or from the pharmacy, but packaging is easy to copy.  Anyone with a good scanner and printer can make a realistic looking package.

How can you protect yourself from purchasing a product that at best may be an innocuous sugar pill to at worst a toxic chemical contaminated with E. coli?   The most obvious solution is to buy your medications directly from a brick and mortar pharmacy or directly from your vet, but that can often be more expensive.  To cut out the middle man ordering directly from the source can sometimes save you a significant amount of money.  The NABP has created an accreditation program called Vet-VIPPS.  There are 13 pet prescription pharmacies that are listed on the site.  The is a great place to start.  The NABP also has a list of Not-Recommended online pharmacies.  There are close to 8,000 of those listed.  The Better Business Bureau is another good place to look to see if a company has many complaints against it, but many companies are too new or too small to be listed on their site.  

Saving a few dollars here and a few dollars there is smart budgeting, but if a deal seems too good to be true, then it probably is.  Items are priced at what the market will allow them to sell for.  If someone is selling something for substantially less than everyone else, it probably isn't the same thing.