Seized 100 web domains as part of international effort against counterfeit meds
by Kristina Fiore, Deputy Managing Editor, MedPage Today September 25, 2017
The FDA seized the website domains of nearly 100 online pharmacies — including buyhydrocodoneonline.com and buyklonopin.com — and sent 13 warning letters to the operators of 400 other sites for selling unapproved prescription drugs.
The agency also confiscated some 500 packages that were ordered from those sites, it said in a statement.
FDA’s efforts were part of Operation Pangea, an annual global effort led by Interpol to fight the sale and distribution of illegal and potentially counterfeit or substandard medical products on the internet. This was the 10th annual intervention — it started in 2008 — and Reuters reported that about 25 million illegal or counterfeit drug products were seized and more than 3,500 websites were shut down around the world.
“Consumers go to these websites believing that they are buying safe and effective medications, but they are being deceived and put at risk by individuals who put financial gains above patient safety,” FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb, MD, said in a statement.
Gottlieb noted that the sale and distribution of illegal opioids online is particularly troubling, given the nation’s problems with prescription painkiller abuse: “The ease with which consumers can purchase opioid products online is especially concerning to me, given the immense public health crisis of addiction facing our country,” he said. “Some of the websites sold unapproved versions of multiple prescription opioids directly to U.S. consumers.”