Up Close: Online drugs prescription for danger?

03:16 PM CST on Tuesday, February 17, 2004

By Shern-Min Chow / 11 News

Click to watch video

Who wouldn’t want to save money on expensive prescription drugs, especially since they’re forcing some people to choose between meals and medicine?

But we’ve found cheaper options from other countries or over the Internet could make you sicker, even kill you.

KHOU

In November we tested drugs purchased from Mexico and found alarming amounts of heavy metal contaminants.

The result?

Reaction from around the world, including a Mexican doctor who had his personal medications tested and found serious problems.

Since then, we’ve been examining popular drugs purchased on the Internet, and even the Federal Drug Administration wants our results.

We are a nation ready to pop a better pill.

Lining up at pharmacies around the corner, across the border and along the information highway.

The Federal Drug Administration estimates three to four million Americans are buying lower-cost foreign drugs, because to many, better means cheaper.

But at what price to your health?

We wanted to find out for you, so we purchased popular drugs online from Mexican and Canadian pharmacies.

Weeks later, the first to arrive was Viagra in a hand-addressed envelope, clearly postmarked from India.

Inside was a little cardboard, a few sheets of paper, the bill from our Mexican on-line pharmacy, a plastic bag and four unmarked pills.

There was absolutely none of the active ingredient.

While it wouldn’t hurt you physically, psychologically?

“His dreams would be deflated to say the least,” said forensic toxicologist Dr. Ernest Lykissa. “I don’t know how else to put it.”

And how does India figure into all this?

Experts warn these days fancy Websites need only a basic computer.

Our pharmacist found a supplier in India, probably through the Internet.

Was our finding just a fluke?

Not according to the FDA, which is in the middle of testing 1600 drugs purchased outside the United States, including birth control medicines.

‘It’s a fake knockoff of that contraceptive patch you see on television,” the FDA’s Dr. Richard Hubbard said.

There was no active ingredient.

Hubbard also showed us seizure and prostate medications an elderly man bought, which were supposedly made in Canada.

“In fact he was getting these fake knockoffs from India,” Dr. Hubbard said.

“We have seen other examples of Indian companies selling drugs through Canada, or directly over the Internet,” Dr. Hubbard said.

In fact, the FDA was so intrigued by our efforts, they asked for the results of all our tests.

We were happy to comply

We bought the top five U.S. prescribed drugs online from two Mexican pharmacies.

The first batch was purchased from Safemeds.com.

The Premarin, Synthroid and Zoloft equivalents were relatively pure and potent, but the Norvasc had up to ten times the acceptable level of certain heavy metals, and its potency was a borderline acceptable 92 percent.

Poor manufacturing processes also tainted the Lipitor samples with similar problems, one was just under 79 percent potent.

“That means you’re only getting about three-quarters of what you’re supposed to be getting,” forensic toxicologist Dr. Ernest Lykissa said.

The second group we bought from myrxforless.com.

Contamination was worse.

The Zoloft had nearly 20 times the acceptable level of certain metals, including an elevated level of arsenic.

There were similar troubles with the Norvasc and Premarin, and the Synthroid had elevated mercury.

The worst was the Lipitor which had 20 milligrams of contaminants, and just 80 percent potency.

“I would definitely categorize it as a dangerous drug,” Dr. Lykissa said.

Heavy metals threaten kidneys and could cause bladder cancer.

Also, weakened drugs could devastate weakened patients.

“Is it potentially fatal?” Dr. Lykissa was asked. “It could be, depending on the individual,” he said.

Think Canada is safer?

We checked, and the Canadian drugs also showed heavy metal contaminants, but at lower levels.

The FDA’s response after reviewing our results.?

“These are contaminants that the FDA would never allow to be in a U.S. produced drug,” the administration’s Dr. Richard Hubbard said.

So who’s behind the fancy websites?

We tracked Safemeds to an office in Mexico City, where they explained why foreign drugs are cheaper.

“The regulation system is much stricter in the United States than here in Mexico,” Arturo Silva with Safemeds said.

The only address for Rx for Less is a post office in the Mexican border town of Agua Prieta.

But we tracked box number 65, to a corner drug store called Maxi Farmacia.

Owner Ricardo Luevano says his Mexican supplier gets the medication from many countries.

Then he said he didn’t sell the drugs we tested. He insisted quality was fine until we showed him our test results.

“You don’t recognize any of those drugs?” we asked. “No,” Luevano said. “You don’t? we asked again. “No,” he said once more.

But then, the very drug he wanted to show us as a quality product, Lipitor, was among the worst of the medicines we’ve tested.

“Our medicine is bad?” Luevano asked.

The problem is it’s hard for even a farmacia to know where its drugs are coming from.

“You may be dealing with an individual who on Saturday is making illegal illicit drugs, and on Sunday says, ‘let’s make Viagra,’ “ Dr. Lykissa said.

Or something that looks just like it

“They are going to get a foreign knockoff of a drug that can well have contamination that you have described in your study,” the FDA’s Dr. Richard Hubbard said.

A government warning you won’t find with the pills we bought online.