Copyright 1999 The New York Times Company
The New
York Times
July 31, 1999, Saturday, Late Edition - Final
SECTION: Section A; Page 12; Column
1; National Desk
LENGTH: 581 words
HEADLINE: Officials Struggle to Regulate On-Line Sale
of Prescription Drugs
BYLINE: By SHERYL GAY
STOLBERG
DATELINE: WASHINGTON, July 30
BODY:
The Food and Drug Administration announced
steps today to curb the illegitimate sale of prescription drugs
over the Internet, while officials at another agency, the
Federal Trade Commission, asked Congress to require electronic pharmacies to
post detailed on-line information about their licenses and the doctors who write
the prescriptions they fill.
But the officials' pronouncements, made
during a Congressional hearing to examine the burgeoning electronic drug trade,
revealed as much about what the Government cannot do as what it can do. While
the authorities say they may be able to rein in domestic companies marketing
pills on line, they acknowledge that the bulk of the business is conducted
overseas. "Ten years ago, it was hard for you to buy a foreign drug; you had to
go to a foreign country," William K. Hubbard, associate commissioner for policy
at the F.D.A., said in an interview. "Now the Internet makes it simple, and you
can't do anything about these foreign sites because you don't have the reach to
foreign countries."
The growth of prescription drug sales in cyberspace
has been troubling state and Federal officials for the last year, but no one
agency has the authority to regulate it. Typically, medicine is prescribed by
doctors, who are licensed by state medical boards, and is dispensed by
pharmacies, also licensed by the states. But the explosion in electronic
commerce, coupled with demand for the impotence pill Viagra and other new
"life-style drugs," has turned the old system on its head.
Now doctors
are prescribing pills on line to patients they have never met, in states where
they are not authorized to work. Pharmacies are shipping pills across state
lines without the requisite licenses. Regulatory authorities have disciplined
some doctors and pharmacies, but the work is slow and difficult because the
ownership of Web sites is so hard to track.
At the same time, no one
knows how many electronic pharmacies exist. Representative Ron Klink, the
Pennsylvania Democrat who pressed for today's hearing before the Oversight and
Investigations Subcommittee of the House Commerce Committee, said that his staff
had identified more than 200, but that there might be twice that many. Mr.
Hubbard, of the F.D.A., said his agency would immediately begin trying to
identify each site and learn where it is registered, so the authorities in those
states could be alerted.
Mr. Klink, meanwhile, said he intended to
introduce legislation next week along the lines of the trade commission's
proposal, which would require that any Web site selling medication state its
name, address and telephone number, as well as the states in which the pharmacy
and its cooperating doctors are licensed. The on-line pharmacy industry is
already objecting to the bill.
"All we are saying is that if you are
selling a pharmaceutical product, just like your neighborhood pharmacy has to
display their license, you have to display yours on your Web page," Mr. Klink
said in an interview. "We are asking nothing more from the electronic commerce
people than we are asking from anyone else who is in business."
But
William Razzouk, chief executive of PlanetRx.com, an on-line drugstore licensed
to ship medicine to all 50 states, said he preferred a voluntary system set up
by the National Boards of Pharmacy, a coalition of state licensing authorities.
The coalition has begun registering on-line pharmacies, and accrediting them
with its seal of approval. http://www.nytimes.com
LOAD-DATE: July 31, 1999 
