Copyright 1999 Federal Document Clearing House, Inc.
Federal Document Clearing House Congressional Testimony
July 30, 1999
SECTION: CAPITOL HILL HEARING TESTIMONY
LENGTH: 1694 words
HEADLINE:
TESTIMONY July 30, 1999 WILLIAM RAZZOUK HOUSE COMMERCE
OVERSIGHT AND INVESTIGATIONS ON LINE PHARMACIES
BODY:
Testimony of William Razzouk Chairman & Chief Executive Officer,
PlanetRx.com Before Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigation Committee on
Commerce U.S. House of Representatives Friday, July 30, 1999 Mr. Chairman,
Members of the Subcommittee, before I begin, allow me to thank you for giving me
the opportunity to share with you what PlanetRx.com believes the on-line
pharmacy business is and is not, should and should not be. My name is Bill
Razzouk, and I am the Chairman and CEO of PlanetRx.com, a pharmacy chain with
approximately 70 million branch "stores," each of which is on the desktop of a
person with computer access to the Internet. Each of PlanetRx.com's 70 million
branch stores is a traditional neighborhood pharmacy. Each of our branch stores
is a place where customers can come to buy over-the-counter products, obtain
answers to their questions about prescription drugs and diseases, and have a
licensed pharmacist fill the prescriptions that have been issued to them by the
properly trained and licensed physicians with whom they have a traditional
doctor-patient relationship. In other words, PlanetRx.com is your "neighborhood"
virtual pharmacy - an on-line pharmacy designed with guidance from leaders of
the pharmacy profession. Like your family's pharmacy, we authenticate all
prescriptions before filling them; Like your family's pharmacy, we check to
confirm that the prescribing physician is a properly licensed physician with a
current DEA number; And, like your family's corner pharmacy, at PlanetRx.com we
do not prescribe drugs, we only dispense them. We do not interfere in any way
with the sanctity of the patient-physician relationship. All of which is to say,
there is very little conceptual difference - but enormous difference in terms of
convenience - between PlanetRx.com, traditional neighborhood pharmacies, and the
mail-order prescription services that are used by tens of millions of Americans,
many of whom are elderly and housebound. We fully understand that the concept of
"on-line" pharmacies is new and a bit mysterious to some people. However,
discomfort with the concept of E-commerce in general, and E-pharmacies in
particular, will not eliminate the reality of either. The Internet, as we all
know, is now a major positive force in American business. And the legitimate
emerging on-line pharmacies are an important part of this new environment. Mr.
Chairman, there is no doubt that we are all concerned about the irresponsible
practices of Internet-based prescribers for hire, doctors whose only contact
with their patient comes in reviewing an on-line questionnaire. Such practices
are as abhorrent to us at PlanetRx.com as they are to our responsible
competitors, to the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy, to the American
Medical Association - - - and to you. The question before us then, is how to
eliminate these unprincipled operators, while fostering the responsible,
legitimate on-line pharmacy business in a way that will benefit consumers and
protect their health interests. Eliminating the Internet equivalent of
back-alley drug sales does not require new legislation, all it requires is the
vigorous enforcement of the existing state and federal laws. For example,
PlanetRx.com, as a responsible on-line pharmacy, adheres to all state and
federal regulations governing the practice of pharmacy, just as a traditional
pharmacy does: We only fill prescriptions that are written by authorized
prescribers; We maintain procedures that verify the authenticity of
prescriptions; We are licensed to dispense and deliver prescriptions to all 50
states, the District of Columbia, and all U.S. territories; We conduct an
extensive drug utilization review (DUR) prior to dispensing a medication in
accordance with state law to help prevent harmful drug interactions; We do not
practice medicine - we neither diagnose patients, nor prescribe medications. In
addition to abiding by all existing laws and regulations, PlanetRx.com also
adheres to a "code of principles" we have developed for ourselves: We support
the Verified Internet Pharmacy Practices Sites (VIPPS) criteria of the National
Association of Boards of Pharmacy; We never sell, trade, rent, or intentionally
disclose or access personal data without a customer's consent, except when
required to do so by law or legal considerations; We actively protect the
security and confidentiality of customers' personal information and use the most
advanced technology to take orders and to display prescription
information. We encrypt all personal information for transactions over the
Internet; We provide access to licensed pharmacists 24 hours a
day, 7 days a week - including on holidays. All of these activities meet or
exceed traditional requirements for the practice of pharmacy as regulated by the
states, and define the next generation of standards followed by responsible
on-line organizations. While I've made several references to our similarities to
the traditional neighborhood pharmacy, I'd like to outline the numerous
differentiators and benefits that PlanetRx.com., an on- line pharmacy, offers
consumers. Quite simply, unlike the traditional bricks and mortar pharmacy: We
have pharmacists available for private consultation by telephone or e-mail, 24
hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year, including all major holidays;
We are able to carry an enormous array of over 28,000 unique health and beauty
items; We provide e-mail reminders when it's time to refill
prescriptions; We have some of the most compelling health
information on the Internet, and a group of disease-specific
"satellite" sites that are designed for the sufferers of chronic diseases
including such domains as Diabetes.com, Arthritis.com, and Depression.com; We
provide easily accessible information on drug interactions, as well as a broad
range of general medical and personalized medical information; Because our
"stores" are on our customer's desktops, rather than in invested overhead, we
can offer lower drug prices to customers, which is particularly important to the
millions of seniors who don't have prescription insurance; We offer the
convenience and privacy of on-line ordering and consultation with a pharmacist,
making customers more likely to ask questions they might be embarrassed to ask
in the middle of a crowded traditional pharmacy; We offer the disabled, injured,
and seriously ill an easy way to "go to the pharmacy" without leaving their
homes. Ultimately, we provide a place where people care about the needs and
problems of seniors, the disabled, those who suffer from chronic disease, and
those who require ongoing follow-up. Using our disease specific "satellite"
sites, we are developing a network of patient-oriented communities that provide
the emotional and group support many people lack when facing debilitating
illness. At PlanetRx.com, we believe that providing care is an essential step in
the healing process. The challenge for us as an industry is to manage patient
safety, security, and confidentiality while not limiting the creativity that
on-line access can offer the millions of Americans who require healthcare
products. What is needed is an innovative, aggressive effort to enforce existing
state and federal laws that secure legitimate on-line pharmacy distribution. To
that end, we would like to use this forum today to call for a national Summit
meeting of on-line pharmacy industry and technology leaders to address the
obvious questions and problems posed by the "rogue" on-line operators whose
practices concern us as much as they do you. This Summit, hosted by
PlanetRx.com, would serve as an opportunity to design tools and establish a
system to enhance the enforcement of existing laws and regulations, consider the
reliability of the VIPPS seal, develop innovative ways to promote consumer
education regarding responsible on-line pharmacy practices, and consider ways to
insure that patients have the choice to fill prescriptions either on or
off-line. Further, I suggest that this Summit should take place within the next
90 days, and that the first item on the Summit agenda be the establishment of an
industry-supported "watchdog" system that uses technology and trained industry
experts to seek out and immediately report to regulatory authorities on the
state and federal level suspected sites that may be selling or prescribing
medications without proper licensing. If it's possible for an individual to
screen his or her own e-mail, and conduct searches across the entire internet,
it is certainly possible for an industry as net-savvy as ours to maintain a
daily check for unlicensed or otherwise suspect sites in order to immediately
report them to the appropriate authorities. You may ask why you should allow our
industry to act as a "neighborhood watch." We're offering to participate in this
activity because we know the "neighborhood" well, and we know the technology. We
are here to offer our assistance and industry expertise to the numerous agencies
in each of the 50 states, as well as federal agencies who are responsible for
law enforcement. As Federal Trade Commission Chairman Pitofsky recently said,
when speaking of the on-line privacy issue, "We continue to believe that
effective self-regulation is the best way to protect consumer privacy on the
Internet..." Similarly, we believe that effective self-regulation is the best
way to protect consumers using Internet business services. Mr. Chairman, we do
not believe, however, that new federal legislation is necessary at this time.
What is necessary instead, is the development of innovative ways to apply the
laws already in place, in an on-line environment that had not even been imagined
when the various laws were written. And the Summit I'm proposing will allow us
together to develop those innovations - beginning with the daily check I've just
proposed. Again, thank you for giving me this opportunity to appear before you
today. I hope I have clearly explained the practices of PlanetRx.com, and
provided you some viable solutions to the issues that confront our infant
industry.
LOAD-DATE: August 4, 1999
