Medication Safety Tips
Featured Resources
About UsReporting Medication ErrorsContact Us
Brought to you by
Left Chevron
Back
Left Chevron
Reporting a Medication Error

FDA Campaign Aims to Protect Consumers from the Risks of Fake Online Pharmacies

Republished October 31, 2024

The internet makes it easy to order just about anything online. But caution should be taken when buying prescription medicines online.

The US Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) BeSafeRx: Your Source for Online Pharmacy Information provides resources for patients, caregivers, and healthcare professionals who may purchase medicines online to better understand who they are buying from, and that the medicine they buy matches what their doctor prescribed.

According to the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy (NABP), the risk of purchasing medicine from a rogue online pharmacy is high. NABP reports that less than 3 percent of online pharmacies meet state and federal laws.

Buying medicines from rogue online pharmacies can be risky. The medicine may be fake, expired, contaminated, or not approved by the FDA. Fraudulent and illegal online pharmacies often offer deeply discounted products. If the low prices seem too good to be true, they probably are. FDA’s BeSafeRx campaign is designed to help patients learn how to avoid these risks.

Fraudulent online pharmacies use sophisticated marketing efforts or phony website to appear legitimate. Patients who buy medicines from these websites may be putting their health at risk because the products may contain the wrong ingredients, contain too little, too much, or no active ingredient at all, or be made with other harmful ingredients.

Patients should only buy prescription medicine through online pharmacies that:

  • require a valid prescription from a doctor or other healthcare professional,
  • are located in the United States,
  • have a licensed pharmacist available for consultation, and
  • are licensed by the state board of pharmacy - the state that the patient lives in. 

More Safety Articles

Dramamine brand name will confuse

The brand name Dramamine is the latest example of a well known, over-the-counter (OTC) medicine name being recycled for use in products that contain a different medicine or ingredients that differ from those in the original product. The original Dramamine (regular or chewable) contains 50 mg of dimenhydrinate (Figure 1). But there is now a Dramamine that contains a different medicine called meclizine 25 mg per tablet (Figure 2). And another product, Dramamine Non-Drowsy Naturals, does not contain a drug at all—it’s a supplement that only contains ginger root (Figure 3).

Learn More

Humatrope Medicine Cartridges and the HumatroPen Size Must Be a Match!

Learn More

Looks Can Be Deceiving!

Boric acid suppositories are sometimes used to treat chronic vaginal infections when traditional treatments have failed. Vaginal infections are typically treated with antibiotics, such as metronidazole. For some women, the infection comes back right away. When this happens, some doctors will recommend trying boric acid suppositories.

Learn More

A documented allergy overlooked

A doctor prescribed Donnatal (hyoscyamine, atropine, scopolamine, and phenobarbital) for a man who was allergic to one of its ingredients, phenobarbital. Donnatal is used to relax the muscles in the bladder and intestines and to reduce stomach acid. The community pharmacy’s computer system issued a warning about the allergy, but the pharmacist missed seeing the message while entering the prescription into the computer. The doctor also overlooked the allergy even though it was documented in the patient’s chart. The error was discovered by the man while reading the pharmacy provided consumer medication information leaflet, which listed phenobarbital as one of the ingredients. The man did not take the Donnatal.

Learn More