State body to investigate online trade

THE Pharmaceutical Society of Ireland (PSI), the State body in charge of chemists, has launched an investigation into how the Irish Examiner was freely able to buy drugs that should normally only be available on prescription.

All of the drugs and a detailed dossier of written evidence has been handed over to the society’s registrar, Dr Ambrose McLoughlin.

Dr McLoughlin, who oversees the country’s 1,500 chemists and enforces pharmacy law, said he was deeply concerned about the ease at which the drugs were purchased.

“We are concerned solely for patient safety and nothing else. Getting medicines off the internet is something that we are deeply concerned about and we have been discussing just this very issue.

“People just don’t know what they are getting: it could be counterfeit, harmful or a placebo.”

The drugs are being tested by the PSI to find out if the drugs are genuine, safe, fake or even lethal.

The dossier contains order forms, sales confirmations by e-mail, customs labels, documents purporting to be prescriptions, addresses of the websites, contact details as well as delivery notes.

The Irish Examiner journalist who ordered the drugs gave the PSI a detailed three-page statement outlining every step in his investigation.

During the investigation, The Irish Examiner kept the authorities fully informed and ensured the medicines were kept locked in a safe.

Dr McLoughlin said he has decided to investigate the availability of online drugs, saying the public needed to be aware of the dangers of the internet.

He said the PSI was deeply concerned about people diagnosing their own illnesses and then buying their own drugs over the internet.

He said more than 10,000 people a year poisoned themselves, accidentally or otherwise, by misusing medicines they had obtained in chemists, on the net or by other means.

Dr McLoughlin said he was particularly surprised that The Irish Examiner had been sent an unlicensed medicine in the post from a pharmacy based in England.

“Britain has a similar regulatory framework to us so we shall be informing our counterparts there,” he said.

Dr McLoughlin was also intrigued to learn how we were even able to track delivery of two of our parcels from Holland.

The PSI hopes the detailed dossier will give the authorities extra ammunition in the fight to stop the flow of medicines coming into Ireland.