Not a day goes on when our email inboxes usually do not fill with advertisements for prescription drugs. A number of these emails promise to provide drugs of all classes by overnight courier with out a prescription. While there are legitimate online pharmacies, and the practice of telemedicine or cyber-medicine is gaining acceptance, this change in the manner medicine has been practiced is rocking the foundations of the medical establishment. Having the ability to consult a doctor online, and obtain prescription drugs sent to your doorstep by UPS has broad social and legal implications. THE WEB facilitates making drugs open to those who might not be able to afford to cover US prices, are embarrassed to see a doctor face-to-face, or suffer from pain, the treatment of which puts most doctors in direct conflict with the ‘war on drugs’ but on the other hand there’s the question whether these pharmacies make drugs available to recreational drug users without the oversight of a licensed physician.
The Need for Alternatives
Medical care in the US has reached a point where it really is expensive and impersonal which has caused the buyer to become generally unsatisfied with the medical establishment as a whole. For example the huge differences between the cost of drugs in the US and Canada, long wait times in US pharmacies, and poor service in general. Perhaps realizing this, US customs appears to tolerate the millions of Americans that visit Canada each year to buy their medications, are you aware that most part, these ‘drug buyers’ are elderly American’s that can’t afford the high cost of filling their prescriptions in the US.
Rather than to go to Canada or Mexico an incredible number of Americans are now turning to the Internet for both their medical needs. Telemedicine (or cyber medicine) provides consumers having the ability to both consult with a doctor online and order drugs over the Internet at discounted prices. It has resulted in consumers turning to online pharmacies because of their medical needs, and specifically pharmacies with a relationships with your physician, which allow the consumer to completely bypass the traditional brick and mortar pharmacies, with the added benefit of having their physician become an intermediary between your consumer and the pharmacy. According to Johnson (2005) this is because of consumers becoming very dissatisfied with regards to dealing with both offline pharmacies and medical practitioners. As oxycodone hcl , notes, “Consumers are more prone to know the name of their hairdresser than their pharmacist.” When Johnson (2005) rated the many professions within medical care system, he found that pharmacists had the lowest interaction making use of their patients than did any group. Today, as a result of this “consumers are buying 25.5 percent of their prescriptions online, against 13.5 percent which are found at a offline pharmacy” (Johnson 2005).
Drugs and Society
What has brought so much focus on online pharmacies is that it is possible to obtain virtually any drug with out a prescription online. Many of these prescriptions are for legitimate purposes purchased through an online pharmacy as the buyer is too embarrassed to go to the physician or for other reasons like the unavailability of FDA approved drugs to the buyer. These drugs may include steroids that due to their misuse and being classed as a classed a category three drugs, are seldom prescribed by physicians. These drugs have a useful purpose to those experiencing any wasting disease such as AIDS, they also play a role in ant-aging (FDA, 2004).
The Doctor Patient Relationship
Today a visit to a doctor is generally brief, much of the triage it is done by a nurse or perhaps a nurse practitioner with the doctor only dropping in for a couple of minutes, if at all. In many cases the patient is seen by a nurse practitioner. Among the arguments against telemedicine or even a better term is cyber-medicine, is that the physician does not have a physical relationship with the patients and thus is in no position to create a diagnosis, and thus can not legally prescribe drugs.
Ironically when one compares the work up that one must go through to check with an online physicians and compares this to a face-to-face visit with a offline doctor, one finds that the web physician, in many cases, has a better understanding of the patient’s condition than does the doctor who meets face-to-face with the individual. Generally before an on-line a doctor prescribes any sort of medication they insist on a full blood workup they may additionally require that certain has additional tests performed, for instance.
The AMA, the government, and different states claim, however, that it is illegal for a health care provider to prescribe drugs with out a valid doctor-patient relationship. While there are no laws at present that outlaw online pharmacies, various states have enacted legislation, or are along the way of enacting legislation to prohibit a doctor from prescribing drugs to an individual that they have not seen face to face. Some states also require that the doctor that prescribes the drugs be licensed within their state. This alone could hamper the development of cyber-medicine. According to William Hubbard (2004), FDA associate commissioner “THE MEALS and Drug Administration says it really is giving states first crack at legal action, though it’ll step in when states usually do not act” (FDA, 2004).
Internet Pharmacies
The reason that email boxes round the country fill with offers to supply drugs of most kinds, at reduced prices, without prescriptions, and much more is because people get them as the billions of dollars the drug companies are making each year attest to. The Internet has become the drug store of choice for most.