US consumer group weighs in on online pharmacy debate

US consumer advocacy group the Partnership for Safe Medicines has called for search engines to be held accountable for profits they make off sponsored ads placed by illegal online pharmacies.

The group cites the recent study by LegitScript and KnujOn which found that 90 per cent of sponsored advertising on search engines violated federal and state laws - including selling substandard and counterfeit drugs to consumers, often without a prescription.

KnujOn is an antispam company while LegitScript is an organisation which verifies the legitimacy of online pharmacies. Their report distinguished between ‘organic’ search results - the main body of search results over which search engine operators have little control - and the sponsored links which generate a revenue stream for search engine operators when an Internet user clicks on them.

Search engine companies, such as Microsoft with its Bing service, flagrantly disregard public health and safety when they permit an illegal online pharmacy to advertise on their sites, PSM maintains.

"What’s even more alarming is that Internet search engines are in no way held accountable for hosting and profiting off the illegal online pharmacies who distribute substandard and counterfeit drugs," said Marv Shepherd, PSM's president and director of the Center for Pharmacoeconomic Studies at the University of Texas at Austin's College of Pharmacy.

"How long will our policymakers allow search engines to knowingly facilitate the illegal importation and distribution of unsafe medicines?" he added.

PSM notes that search engine companies claim to protect consumers by verifying the legitimacy of an online drug advertiser using PharmacyChecker.com - an online pharmacy verification service that was set up in 2003 to help consumers find legitimate pharmacies and compare medicine pricing.

Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft say they require all advertisers and their affiliates who sell prescription drugs (as well as advertisers who refer visitors to prescription drug-selling sites) to be approved through the PharmacyChecker verification programme.

The advertised pharmacy must also be based in the US or Canada, but the LegitScript/KnujOn researchers found that many of the websites claiming to be based in Canada actually shipped drugs originating in India, Singapore or Barbados.

"Neither search engines nor PharmacyChecker.com are being held accountable for clear violations of state and federal laws, as well as their own requirements, despite being on notice that illicit sales are occurring," said Bryan Liang, executive director of the Institute of Health Law Studies and vice president of PSM.

"Unless the online pharmacy is licensed through a national Internet pharmacy licensing program such as VIPPS, selling drugs via the Internet should be illegal," says Dr. Liang.

PSM is calling for new legislation in the USA to prohibit financial transactions for drug sales of unlicensed online pharmacies and create substantive criminal penalties for any party, including Web sites and search engines, which engage in the trade in counterfeit medicines.

SecuringPharma.com raised the issue of illegal medicine advertising on Google News with the company several weeks ago, but has been unable to secure any comment on its policy and plans in this area.