Copyright 1999 The New York Times Company
The New
York Times
December 21, 1999, Tuesday, Late Edition -
Final
SECTION: Section F; Page 7; Column
5; Health & Fitness
LENGTH: 227 words
HEADLINE: Help for Web Pharmacy Users
BYLINE: AP
DATELINE: WASHINGTON, Dec. 20
BODY:
The Food and Drug Administration started a
Web site today to help patients buying drugs and medical products on the
Internet to ensure that they are coming from legitimate sources rather than
dangerous quacks.
The site, which is reachable from the drug agency's
home page (www.fda.gov), is part of what the agency calls a "much more
aggressive" effort to police Internet medicine. It includes instructions for
consumers to report any suspicious sites and to alert the agency quickly if they
suffer serious side effects or injuries from products bought online. It can be
difficult to tell the difference between legitimate online drugstores and those
that sell illegal products -- some dangerous, others a waste of money, the
agency warned.
For example, it recently uncovered illegal at-home AIDS
tests sold over the Internet that did not work. And it said a 53-year-old
Chicago man died after taking Viagra ordered over the Internet, instead of
seeing a doctor who could have advised him that he was at risk for heart disease
that made the impotence pill dangerous.
The drug agency says that
consumers can make sure an online pharmacy is legitimate by checking the Web
site of the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy (www.nabp.net). And it
urges consumers not to buy prescription drugs without a real prescription from a
physician they know. http://www.nytimes.com
LOAD-DATE: December 21, 1999 
