Internet pharmacies often break the law
Owners of Dutch medicine web sites are breaking the law by not having the necessary drug law permits, exporting illegal medicines or not carrying out proper consultations with patients, says the Volkskrant newspaper
All three online pharmacies the newspaper placed orders with in its investigation broke drugs laws, the paper said.
These included prescribing and shipping a slimming drug to a breast-feeding woman, delivering the addictive anti-depressant Lorazepam, and shipping illegal medicines abroad.
The incidents were reported by the newspaper to the healthcare inspectorate, which begins a public information campaign on the risk of such sites today.
It says patients are put at risk from unregistered or fake drugs and because the doctors working for such sites have no knowledge of who they are prescribing for.
A new law will be introduced next month banning doctors from working for such web sites and prescribing drugs to patients they have not actually examined in person.
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