LegitScript ? Not So Legit?

[u-Bob]

http://boingboing.net/2010/10/01/pha...affiliate.html

Online prescription companies have made it possible for many of us to get drugs we could not otherwise afford from "offshore" sources. Now, one of the most prominent offshore suppliers is telling customers "After recent action taken by LegitScript.com we have had to stop supplying customers within the USA." Alex Blaze at Bilerico reports:

LegitScript also wears their partnership with the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy, which opposes drug reimportation from Canada, a cheaper alternative to American medications that was discussed during health care reform but was rejected mainly because it would save the average American $800 a year, which would come directly from the pharmaceutical industry (crazily enough, the NABP decries Canadian drugs as "unsafe," even though they help license pharmacies in nine provinces).

If this were about protecting people from shady online companies providing unsafe or counterfeit drugs, that would be one thing. But the blocked site, InHousePharmacy.com, has been providing great products and service for years. I know it's widely used by transgender people, who are far more likely to be priced out of insurance and privatized healthcare options. The alternative is dangerous black market hormones that used to be far too prevalent among low-income trans people. LegitScript feels like they're pulling a page from other protectionist trade organizations in the news, in order to maintain revenue streams for deep-pocket industries.

http://www.bilerico.com/2010/09/inho..._to_the_us.php

http://pharmacycheckerblog.com/legitscript-not-so-legit

A firm called Legit Script (LegitScript.com) claims to be protecting people by labeling legitimate Canadian and other non-U.S. pharmacies as ?Unapproved? or ?Rogue.? This serves the big pharmaceutical interests but not the American consumer. More than that, its founder, John Horton, appears to have exploited his former government position to establish LegitScript.com for his own gain.

In 2007, John Horton worked in the Bush White House as Deputy Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP). ...

Congress had called for a report from ONDCP to propose a ?strategy to stop advertisements that provide information about obtaining over the Internet drugs?without the use of a lawful prescription ...
Moreover, Congress? request was limited in scope to controlled substances. Horton, as the chief staff person on this assignment, apparently switched the focus of the report from preventing access to controlled medicines without prescriptions to denying Americans access to any type of medicine, even with a valid prescription, if coming from a Canadian pharmacy.

The absurdity of this switch is that reputable licensed Canadian pharmacies require prescriptions and won?t even sell controlled substances to Americans. We believe this switch was encouraged by big pharmaceutical interests, who make less money when drugs are purchased at lower cost outside the U.S. To achieve their purpose, the report took aim at search engines as well as PharmacyChecker.com. The ONDCP?s paper stated:

?Both Google and Yahoo use a third-party system called PharmacyChecker.com (located at www.PharmacyChecker.com) to verify whether websites seeking to advertise an online pharmacy are legitimate. However, PharmacyChecker has approved several websites from Canada that may be operating lawfully in Canada, but offer prescription drugs to United States consumers??
...
Approving safe, lawful Canadian pharmacies which require prescriptions certainly does not make PharmacyChecker.com ?inadequate? or ?unreliable.? Quite the contrary. Nevertheless, the paper lays out the plan that we believe Horton hatched, promoted and attempted to execute for the past three years:

?The DEA, Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and/or ONDCP will meet with the major Internet advertising services (Google, Yahoo and others) to encourage voluntary action such that only online pharmacies in compliance with Federal and State laws are advertised through the major Internet advertising services. Search engines will be requested to voluntarily adopt standards that comply and encourage consumer compliance with Federal and State laws and regulations, and Boards of Pharmacy standards. This will be done in consultation with the State Boards of Pharmacy through the NABP.?

As we see it, Horton was setting the stage for his company, LegitScript.com, to use this ?U.S. only? standard to displace PharmacyChecker.com as the leading certifier of online pharmacies and to pressure the search engines into blocking advertising of lower cost pharmacies in Canada and elsewhere. While Horton was a government employee, on March 20, 2007 his company?s domain name legitscript.com was registered

[baddog]

There has to be some regulation of pharmaceuticals, especially if being sold online.

[epitome]

I've never understood why the feds do not make a huge public campaign that goes after the people that order pharmaceuticals from shady websites.

If they can find some crude explosives in a cargo hold in two different countries like they did yesterday, they can surely find some pills.

Most of these sites and the pills they sell are counterfeit. I'd have a different attitude if there were proper and legitimate procedures for procuring the pills as a patient and they came from legit overseas sites that save the consumer money.

[goodsites]

I had an "awakening" when i seen pills sold in Thailand for less then one penny each and the Doctor said, he makes a living on that pill alone.. LESS THAN A PENNY EACH.. and his family lives off it..

The same pill here costs $11 per pill

What makes them so special they can get it for basically free? And we get reamed?
No wonder our own people are on disability and don't work.. its good to be in poverty

[u-Bob]

Originally Posted by baddog

There has to be some regulation of pharmaceuticals, especially if being sold online.

This isn't about regulation. It's about a guy who, when he was part of government (the Bush administration), changed policies, set up a company that benefits from those policies and is now forcing sites that are legal in other parts of the world than the US (like Canada for example) to shut down.

[baddog]

Originally Posted by u-Bob

This isn't about regulation.

Yes it is, if you look at the BIG picture. Why do you think there was even a market for his site?

And just because something is legal in another country does not mean you necessarily want to be ingesting it yourself, or give it to a kid.

[u-Bob]

Originally Posted by baddog

Yes it is, if you look at the BIG picture. Why do you think there was even a market for his site?

And just because something is legal in another country does not mean you necessarily want to be ingesting it yourself, or give it to a kid.

They are shutting down websites (taking away domains) that are legal in Canada. If you don't like Canadian meds entering the US, stop them at the border.

[u-Bob]

that is "lawful Canadian pharmacies which require prescriptions".

[u-Bob]

Originally Posted by baddog

Yes it is, if you look at the BIG picture.

the big picture = most government regulations start as an attempt from big cartels to protect their business and muscle out the competition.

Originally Posted by baddog

Why do you think there was even a market for his site?

Because people needed/wanted those products but not at the prices they were being offered?

Originally Posted by baddog

And just because something is legal in another country does not mean you necessarily want to be ingesting it yourself, or give it to a kid.

If you don't want your kid to ingest something, don't give it to your kid.

[BIGTYMER]

Originally Posted by epitome

I've never understood why the feds do not make a huge public campaign that goes after the people that order pharmaceuticals from shady websites.

If they can find some crude explosives in a cargo hold in two different countries like they did yesterday, they can surely find some pills.

Most of these sites and the pills they sell are counterfeit. I'd have a different attitude if there were proper and legitimate procedures for procuring the pills as a patient and they came from legit overseas sites that save the consumer money.

I buy online all the time and its the same medicine I get here. You just have to know which sites are legit and which arent. My only problem is sometimes Customs take and I lose my medicine and my money. They take the drugs and stick a letter in the package saying they seized it. And so all my neighbors know they wrap the package in bright tape with Customs & Homeland Security written all over it.

My medicine is $1,200 a month and my insurance doesn't cover it. I can get the same stuff overseas for only a couple hundred.

Its bullshit. Let them arrest me. If I'm in jail I'll get my medicine for free.

[Ron Bennett]

Most people believe what the government does is for their benefit. In reality, much of what the government does is for the benefit of the power-elite. Often their interests will happen to align somewhat with the interests of the common person. Hence, many people are hoodwinked into believing the government is protecting them when, to reiterate, often it's not for them, but for the power-elite.

People presume LegitScript is there to protect the public from poorly manufactured medicines / unsafe pharmacies - in some regards that's true. However, much of the motivation is not safety, but rather money - can't have people buying name brand medicine from foreign pharmacies for too cheap.

Ron