Say No To Online Drugs.

Online drugs can be dangerous and even fatal.

13:21 28 April 2015

 

In the last two years, at least five UK deaths have been connected to the consumption of diet pills containing DNP (2,4-dinitrophenol).  This has happened, even though the product has been classed as unsafe, extremely dangerous and not fit for consumption by humans, by the American Food and Drug Agency in 1938.

 

A large amount of spam email, (approximately ¼ of that received), advertises miracle cures and low cost medications. Due to the ease of purchasing items online, including counterfeit medication, it has become very easy to obtain and consume these dangerous products, the results of which could be fatal.

 

The dangers of self diagnosing and purchasing medication online are numerous.  The diagnosis is not official and therefore may be incorrect.  The medication purchased may not be appropriate.  There is no individual dosage advice and often no list of possible side effects, ingredients, etc.  There is also no way of knowing exactly what is in the medication.

 

A study carried out by Phizer along with the MHRA, looked at medication bought as a result of responding to advertising in spam email.

They found that many of the medications contained undeclared ingredients, sub-standard ingredients and either too little or too much of a prescription only item.  A “weight loss,” tablet contained an ingredient which is unapproved, still in trials and as such not licensed in the UK.  Another finding was that the products did not come appropriately packaged and at times, were wrapped in tin foil or newspaper.

The manufacturers are taking advantage of a person’s insecurities and desire for a quick fix.  

 

Even medically prescribed products pose a certain amount of risk when taken.  However a doctor will have made an informed and educated decision when prescribing the medication and will have decided that the risk to health of not having the medication outweighs the risk from taking it.  This sort of evaluation does not occur online.

 

For a medicine to be passed and licensed in the UK, the item will have been tested on animals and then three human clinical trial stages will have been carried out.  This will give a clearer idea of the effectiveness and safety of the item.  Then once the item has been licensed, the MHRA continue to obtain data for two years, to further test the effectiveness and safety.  Until then, the product will not be considered safety established.

 

For a company to legitimately bring a medicine to the market, it can cost over £1billion and take 10-15 years.     

 

At present, there is no law to force drug companies to disclose their collected data and of course each company markets their product to the best of their ability.  A doctor can only use the information available when prescribing a product.  For example, many countries spent billions of pounds on Tamiflu during the Swine Flu epidemic but it was found that the medication only reduced the symptoms of flu by half a day and there was no evidence that it made hospitalisation less likely .

 

However the World Health Organisation (WHO), issued a statement saying that Governments should work to ensure that the results from clinical trials are made public, within a year of the end of the trial and previous trial results should be made available.  

A website selling medication should have the General Pharmaceutical Council’s green cross logo.  Without this, the items being sold are not official and probably illegal.