Copyright 1999 St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Inc.
St.
Louis Post-Dispatch
August 8, 1999, Sunday, FIVE STAR LIFT
EDITION
SECTION: BUSINESS, Pg. E1
LENGTH: 519 words
HEADLINE:
HEALING THYSELF ONLINE CAN BE PERILOUS;
A CONSUMER CONVENIENCE IS ALSO A HOT
SPOT FOR ILLICIT SALES;
FDA SAYS TO BEWARE
BYLINE:
Lauran Neergaard; Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON
BODY:
If you recently bought an at-home
AIDS test called EZ Med over the Internet, expect a letter from the government
urging you not to use it. That AIDS test is illegal and, worse, studies show it
can't detect the deadly virus as it claims.
Another cautionary tale: the
53-year-old Chicago man who died after taking the impotence pill Viagra he
ordered over the Internet. There's no way to know, but the government wonders if
asking his doctor instead for the little blue impotency pill would have
protected the man, who apparently had heart disease risks that make Viagra
dangerous. And if you bought another unapproved HIV test called Ana-Sal from the
HIVCybermall Web site, the Food and Drug Administration is trying to contact
you, too, seeking evidence in an investigation of that test's sale.
The
Internet has opened a whole new world for Americans seeking better health. You
can search top-notch medical journals for the latest advice, or e-mail your
doctor. Your physician can fax a prescription to a legitimate online drugstore
that ships your monthly medicine -- and a few computer mouse clicks lets you add
some shampoo or toothpaste to the order without ever leaving home.
But
the Internet also is a hot spot for virtual back-alley drug sales and snake oil,
a Wild West where legitimate online drugstores face stiff competition from Web
sites that don't require genuine prescriptions for legal U.S. drugs or that even
sell illegal ones.
Consumers are enthusiastically embracing that freedom
to play doctor -- but health officials and congressional critics say it could
kill. You could order a drug that's dangerous for your condition. You might even
get a counterfeit or contaminated drug -- there's no way to know, says U.S. Rep.
Ron Klink, D-Pa.
So the government is taking new steps to protect and
educate consumers.
"The key here is consumers need to beware," says FDA
associate commissioner William Hubbard.
For consumers, that message may
bring some unpleasant surprises. Part of the Internet's lure is anonymity. But
when the FDA stopped sales of those two unapproved AIDS tests last month, it got
names and addresses of the Web sites' customers, and is writing them to tell
buyers not to trust the tests' accuracy.
Another lure is not having to
make a doctor's appointment. Some Web sites don't require prescriptions at all.
Others provide consumer questionnaires that a staff doctor supposedly reads to
decide whether the consumer truly should get the drug.
The problem: It's
illegal to sell certain U.S. drugs without a valid prescription, defined under
federal law as written by a doctor with a relationship with the patient. A
questionnaire filled out by a complete stranger doesn't count, Hubbard says.
Plus, it is illegal for doctors to prescribe for patients in a state where the
doctors are not licensed to practice.
The FDA hopes to begin operating a
$ 100,000 computer system to help the states by revealing illegitimate sites to
the proper authorities. Do mestically, if states can't shut down a bad site, the
FDA says it will use federal authority to do so.
LOAD-DATE: August 8, 1999 
