Abstract:

This study assesses the trade-off between drug safety and price savings in online drug purchases. Focusing on five brand-name prescription drugs, we acquire 370 drug samples from 41 online pharmacies and test their authenticity. Of the 41 websites, 8 are clearly US-based and verified by the National Association of...

In a just-published op-ed in the New York Times, American Enterprise Institute (AEI) international health economist Roger Bate highlights a better way to fight fake pharmaceuticals while still giving poor Americans access to less costly drugs from online pharmacies.

There are many website pharmacies, including those from overseas, from which it is almost certainly safe to procure medicines, and U.S. consumers should be able to reduce their risk by relying on credentialing agencies recommended lists and by using common sense when examining packaging and pills.

Evidence from numerous studies shows that emerging markets have far more poor quality drugs than western markets. There are many reasons for this, but one reason, investigated in this paper, is the possibility that smaller, often privately-owned, pharmacies take greater risks with drug procurement than larger organizations, which are often franchises or major pharmacy chains.

The Medicaid drug program wasted $329 million nationwide in 2009 from states all too frequently reimbursing for a version of a drug that is more costly than another product with the exact same active ingredient, dose, form and bottle size.

In an attempt to protect poor, uninsured and underinsured Americans from unsafe drugs, we are making sure that some go without drugs completely. It is time the law was changed.

Many deaths that occur from malaria each year could be avoided if antimalarial drugs were effective, of good quality, and used correctly.

Last month, the Drug Enforcement Administration abruptly revoked the narcotics license held by the distributor Cardinal Health, preventing that firm from shipping prescription pain drugs to thousands of Florida pharmacies and hospitals. It's the latest tactic in the DEA's struggle to stem the illicit use of prescription painkillers like OxyContin and Vicodin.