You would be amazed at how closely counterfeit drugs (including fake Viagra) resemble the real products. In fact, even professionals who regularly seize fake drugs have a hard time telling fakes from genuine products without advanced chemical testing to prove what’s really inside, typically fillers and other inert ingredients.
An eye-opening study presented at the 2012 World Meeting on Sexual Medicine found that more than 75 percent of the Viagra ordered from 22 online sites was counterfeit.
The study, authored by San Diego-based medical doctor Irwin Goldstein, was conducted in cooperation with a team of global security personnel from Pfizer, the company that developed and brought Viagra to the market in the late 1990s. Although Pfizer’s patent for Viagra has expired in some international markets, the company still holds its Viagra patent in the United States.
How to Protect Yourself
In the face of this widespread counterfeiting of Viagra and other erectile dysfunction medications, what steps can you and other informed consumers take to avoid paying for drugs that are not only fake but in many cases are also dangerous?
Your chances of identifying counterfeit Viagra on the basis of appearance alone are very slim indeed. So sophisticated are most drug counterfeiters that they are able to duplicate pill appearance and packaging so closely that even pharmaceutical experts usually must turn to chemical analysis to prove definitively that these drugs are fake.
Don’t Take a Chance
Although the Pfizer-sponsored study shed some light on the pervasiveness of counterfeit drugs, specifically fake Viagra, its small scale may tempt some would-be online buyers of ED drugs to think that it won’t happen to them.
If you’re among those who think you’re savvy enough to avoid falling victim to counterfeit drugs, here’s another sobering statistic to ponder. Operation Pangea VII, an international investigation into the online sale of counterfeit drugs, resulted in the seizure of $36 million worth of potentially dangerous medications.
Coordinated by Interpol, Pangea VII’s task force included law enforcement, customs, and regulatory authorities from 111 countries. Participating in the operation was the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
ED Drugs Widely Faked
Although the counterfeit drugs seized in the operation were not limited to erectile dysfunction drugs, these were among the most widely counterfeited medications uncovered in Pangea VII.
According to Interpol, this global operation against counterfeit drugs resulted in the shutdown of 10,600 websites and the removal from social media platforms of 19,000 advertisements for these illegally marketed drugs.
Hazardous to Your Health?
Getting ripped off is not the only risk you run when you end up buying counterfeit Viagra or other fake medications. Paying good money for a drug that doesn’t work is really the least of your worries.
According to a September 2013 article on Forbes.com, scientific testing on some of the counterfeit Viagra seized by authorities has found that the fake pills contain a variety of potentially dangerous substances. Among the ersatz ingredients are blue printer ink, used as a dye to duplicate Viagra’s bright blue color; drywall and plaster; amphetamine; and the antibiotic metronidazole.
In some cases, the illegally manufactured Viagra did contain sildenafil citrate, which is actually Viagra’s active ingredient. However, most often the amount of active ingredient was too little to be effective. Worse yet, a few of the pills seized had dangerously high levels of sildenafil, so much that taking one of them could trigger a heart attack, according to Forbes.com.
What Can You Do?
Given the unlikelihood of detecting fake Viagra on appearances alone, what other steps can you take to avoid falling victim to drug counterfeiters, particularly when ordering drugs online? Here are some suggestions from the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy that were contained in NABP’s Internet Drug Outlet Identification Program, released in July 2013.
- Beware of any website that offers to sell you Viagra or other impotence medications without a prescription. In the United States, all FDA-approved ED drugs can be purchased only with a doctor’s prescription. NABP found that nearly 90 percent of the online pharmacies on its “Not Recommended” list sell drugs without requiring a prescription.
- Don’t order from online pharmacies that don’t clearly state that the medications they offer are 100 percent FDA-approved.
- Be especially wary of online pharmacies that are based outside the United States or that supply their medications from foreign sources.
- Avoid purchases from online pharmacies that list no street address or other contact information.
- Don’t buy from websites that fail to protect sensitive personal information with SSL (Secure Socket Layer) encryption. While the absence of SSL encryption doesn’t necessarily say anything about the authenticity of the drugs sold by the website, it does mean that a customer’s financial and medical information is easily accessible to anyone who chooses to use it for his or her own personal gain.
Men’s natural reluctance to admit they are having difficulty achieving and maintaining an erection strong enough for sexual activity helps the counterfeiters of Viagra and other ED drugs to continue prospering. Many men would prefer to keep their sex lives and problems as private as possible, which drives them to search out easy ways to buy these drugs online.
Vendors of Fakes Proliferate
As quickly as law enforcement agencies close down one online vendor of counterfeit Viagra, another one almost certainly will pop up elsewhere to take its place. The scope of the problem is so vast that it frustrates the enforcement capabilities of regulatory agencies around the globe.
However, the presence of these bad apples among the online pharmacies selling Viagra should in no way discourage potential customers from ordering impotence medications online. The lesson here is to be extremely careful in your selection of an online pharmacy.
Buy from Reliable Source
eDrugstore.com, part of the Secure Medical network of online pharmacies, is a reliable source for a wide variety of FDA-approved prescription medications, including Viagra and other ED drugs. All such drugs are sourced from U.S.-licensed pharmacies.
In operation for more than a decade, eDrugstore.com is based in Tempe, Arizona. Customers who have questions or comments about eDrugstore’s services and the range of medications it sells can reach a company representative via a toll-free telephone number listed on its website.
Prescription Required
eDrugstore.com requires that you supply a prescription when ordering Viagra or other drugs that are legally available by prescription only. If you have obtained a prescription from your doctor, you can fax it or scan and email it along with your order.
However, if you don’t already have a prescription, eDrugstore can arrange an online consultation with one of the state-licensed physicians on its contract team. To qualify for this service, you must have had a physical examination in the recent past.
Made available free of charge, the online consultation requires the customer to fill out a questionnaire that covers medical history and reasons for ordering the drug. One of eDrugstore’s team doctors will review your request for the drug in light of the information contained on your medical questionnaire. Visit eDrugstore.com to start your order.
Don Amerman is a freelance author who writes extensively about a wide array of nutrition and health-related topics.
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