Finding Trustworthy And Reliable Online Pharmacies
Checking That An Online Prescription-Free Pharmacy Is Reliable
List of Reliable Online Prescription-Free Pharmacies
ME/CFS Patients May Need To Buy Their Own Drugs Online
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Well done
@Hip, Love your work!
A few comments for discussion:
Good business practice versus Goo manufacturing practice: The overview you have written is fantastic for helping people to identify companies that use exploitative business practices such as spamming, on-selling your contact details, failing to deliver products, failing to give refunds, internet fraud or any other riip-off business tactic. But, your search suggestions may not identify companies with
good business practices but fail to follow
good manufacturing practices (GMP). Why?
Lets say you order acetyl-carnitine online to help increase fatty acid oxidation in the mitochondria (something that some CFS sufferers have tried). Your search suggestions above allow reputable companies to be identified with a good online profile that are not associated with scams or rip-offs. But Acetyl-Carnitine is a supplement that can be produced and sold online in many juristictions without any regulatory checks to confirm dosage, purity, formulation and contaminants. So while your search suggestions allow
good business practices to be checked, they do not allow
good manufacturing practices (GMP) to be checked. Thus, there is no way that the consumer can be assured that the "acetyl-carnitine. 1000mg" written on the bottle label is actually
in the tablet. This is true for many supplements and drugs purchased online because they are classified by government regulations as foods and so are not required to meet stringent TGA or FDA regulations and inspections.
"I bought a drug online, but it didnt work for me". This comment is all too common in these forums. However in such cases, there is often no way of knowing whether a 'reputable' company with good business practices is simply selling incorrectly formulated, partially active, or contaminated supplements/drugs. Even in instances where people in these forums have mentioned that a particular supplement/drug bought online has made CFS symptoms
worse, it is almost always assumed that 'it was the wrong supplement/drug for me'. Unless there is a cluster of extreme adverse reactions such as liver failures or deaths, lack of activity or modest adverse reactions are never reported or investigated. However, the potential dangers are significant. For example, OxyElite Pro supplement claims to treat CFS symptoms in which it gives
"sharper mental focus", "clears the fog" and increases energy". However it caused a cluster of
liver failures in Hawaii and while it is now
illegal in some
countries, it is still available
online! So the point is that there is often no simple way to determine whether a company is selling 1) a dangerous product (like OxyElite Pro), 2) an non-dangerous but inactive product with no therapeutic potential or 3) an active product with the correct dosage and formulation. Unfortunately, if companies sell products that do not lead to multiple serious adverse reactions, they can operate for years selling rubbish online and make a ton of money by taking advantage of sick people.
Online drugs and supplements. How reliable are they? How common is it that supplements or online drugs are correctly synthesized, formulated and not contaminated with impurities? Its not an easy question to answer, but some publications suggest that it is prevalent. For example, a 2013 North American study examined 44 herbal products representing 12 companies and 30 different species of herbs and 50 leaf samples collected from 42 herbal species. What they found was alarming. Most products (59%) were contaminated by plant products not listed on the label. Furthermore, ~30% contained fillers and contaminants not listed on the label. Nearly 70% demonstrated that product substitution had occurred! Overall, only 2/12 companies were identified as selling products having no detectable substitutions or undeclared contaminant and fillers (Newmaster et al. BMC Medicine 2013, 11:222).
So how do I source supplements/drugs with correct dosage, formulation and have been checked for possible contaminations? In short, there is no easy answer to this question. Like many in these forums, I have been faced with difficult choices in which supplements/drugs to try and where to purchase them from. The supplements industry has been a gold rush over the last decade. Any multi-billion dollar industry that is so unregulated that almost anyone can set up a factory/lab to synthesize and sell supplements/drugs online is going to be a disaster for consumers. Even my medical doctor seemed to be unaware of some of the issues when he urged me to buy N-Acetyl-Cysteine (NAC) online and see if it helped. The medicinal chemistry required for NAC synthesis is not simple and it is likely that at least some online companies either fail to correctly synthesize NAC or synthesize a product contaminated with partially synthesized intermediates.
Some jurisdictions like the US allow companies to sell drugs and supplements online as food products and so there are few regulations, independent verification or testing (as confirmed in the Study outlined above). Other jurisdictions, such as Australia, are stricter with many supplements and non-prescription drugs being subject to TGA regulations and inspections. Thus, one simple way to avoid companies that fail to follow GMP is to buy supplements/drugs from companies that are subject to TGA or FDA regulations.
Not sure if I solved any problems but hopefully this discussion is useful
Rodger