Articles Posted in Internet Pharmacy

Google has for many years profited somewhat well from advertising by websites dedicated to gambling and internet pharmacy. Website owners who want to advertise on Google and other search engine companies bid on words in an ongoing auction. So, when a person enters a search term and advertisements pop up on the screen top and sides, it costs those advertisers money for the placement and for the number of clicks on those advertisements. Some of the highest cost adwords are for gambling and prescription drugs. Google has long had a strange relationship in that regard with their most profitable advertisers, at times being accused of enabling illegal conduct.
Google has taken steps over time to try to distance itself from some of those advertisers. Two years ago the United States passed the Ryan Haight Act to attempt to eliminate so called rogue internet pharmacies that provided prescription drugs without physician face to face interaction. Google had sought to limit the number of such pharmacies advertising on its search engine but there are still many that operate and advertise. In what seems to have been a long time coming, Google has now instituted a policy that requires any pharmacy related websites in the United Sates to be certified by the National Association of Boards of Pharmacies through its VIPPS program and for Canadian pharmacy websites to be certified by the Canadian International Pharmacy Association (CIPA.). The policy also prevents Canadian pharmacies from advertising in the United States.
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SAN DIEGO (January 26) Less than a year after a South Florida internet Pharmacy trial was dismissed in part due to prosecutorial misconduct, (click: here to read more) another large internet pharmacy case may be heading the same way. A federal judge in San Diego is considering dismissal of a case that initially ended in a mistrial last year after allegations arose that the prosecutor in the case made misstatements to the court about data on computer servers obtained by the government that defense attorneys had requested and were told didn’t exist. We reported about this case last summer here.

The Affpower case was the first internet pharmacy case to use the racketeering statute to prosecute a number of participants in an alleged unlawful internet pharmacy operation and for one of the first times included website owners who were marketers and not involved in the pharmacy or medical affairs of the operation. Defense attorneys had requested access to the computer servers holding the original data, a copy of some of which was used at trial. The prosecutor in the case reported to the Defendants and reportedly the court that the original data had been wiped clean off of the servers, the only data available was that which the government would be using at trial.

The mistrial occurred after the jury originally announced guilty verdicts for all defendants; the jury was polled and it was discovered that one juror did not agree with the verdict. In preparing for the retrial, defense attorneys asked to have an expert review the servers; the expert found that all of the original data was still on the servers. In a bluntly worded order, Chief Judge Irma Gonzalez has ordered prosecutors to explain why she should not dismiss the case due to the misconduct.

The FDA recently moved to shut down internet pharmacy “affiliate” websites in the United States . The Ryan Haight Act, passed in 2008 was the first effort to define the lawful and unlawful practice of telemedicine with respect to controlled substances and required all internet pharmacies to register with the DEA. In addition, many states have moved to restrict or prosecute physicians and pharmacies involved in the internet sales of non-controlled substances. As a consequence, there are fewer of such operations inside the United States and often prescription drugs being purchased online are done from pharmacies located outside the United States . However, the marketers for such pharmacies are often website owners and advertisers known as “affiliates” located inside the United States. Recently the FDA targeted websites operating inside the United States as marketers.
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For more info about Buying Medicine and Medical Products over the Internet, click here.

By Robert David Malove, Esquire

Exclusive to the Health Care Fraud Blog

SAN DIEGO (July 15) In San Diego, on the 44th day of a trial highly touted “Affpower enterprise” internet pharmacy prosecution by the Justice Department, seven defendants learned they were convicted of a range of charges including racketeering. Ten minutes later, after the jury was polled, a juror stated she was coerced into her verdict. A mistrial was declared later, the government indicated it would be trying the defendants again and a briefing schedule was set for motions to dismiss indictment.

An Ohio pharmaceutical wholesaler, Masters Pharmaceutical, Inc, agreed to pay $500,000 and entered into a consent decree pertaining to compliance with DEA regulations in settlement of claims that the distributor unlawfully supplied controlled substances to unlawful internet pharmacies and failed to report those sales to the DEA.
The settlement agreement covers the sales of more than 4,199,465 dosage units of hydrocodone, phentermine and alprazolam that occurred between 2005 and 2008 and were not reported to the DEA. DEA has reporting requirements with respect to the theft or diversion of controlled substances under 21 C.F.R. 1301.74(b).
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One significant development in the area of medical and pharmacy practice was the passage last year of The Ryan Haight Online Pharmacy Consumer Protection Act of 2008. This Act modifies the Controlled Substances Act to address the facilitation of the purchase or dispensing or controlled substances via the internet.

Under current DEA regulations, dispensing includes the not just the sale or provision of a prescription drug, but also the issuance of a prescription. The Act also seeks to define components of telemedicine involving controlled substances. The Act takes effect today. On April 6, 2009, the DEA issued interim rules on the implementation of the Act while regulations are formalized. The interim rules require any on-line pharmacy or physician practicing telemedicine to register with the DEA. However, some definitions and the commentary pertaining to the scope of the Act include some interesting positions as to the potential scope of the Act.

Among the changes to the current Controlled Substances Act is a requirement of a face to face physician encounter prior to the issuance of a prescription for a controlled substances and a definition of a “covering physician” and “in person medical evaluation.” The regulatory definition of a “valid prescription” now is part of the statute and includes, in addition to the previous requirement that a prescription be “for a legitimate medical purpose in the usual course of a physician’s practice” to include that the practitioner must have conducted a least one in-person medical evaluation of the patient or be a covering physician.

By Robert David Malove, Esquire

Exclusive to the Health Care Fraud Blog

FORT LAUDERDALE, FL (April 6, 2008) In a stunning development with implications in two large prosecutions, the United States dismissed with prejudice an Indictment against 10 individuals today in a South Florida courtroom, two of whom had already plead guilty and testified in the trial against the other eight defendants. This follows an eight week trial featuring two mistrials, one based on prosecutorial misconduct and also included accusations against the government of witness tampering and the testimony of a federal prosecutor to attempt to refute the testimony that the government gave permission for one of the defendants to operate his business.