March 16, 2022 Video: Dodgy Drug Websites and HIV
The National Association of Boards of Pharmacy recently shared information with PSM about fake online pharmacies selling questionable anti-viral treatments online.
We were dismayed to find drugs that treat HIV among these products, because substandard or counterfeit medicines can seriously undercut the health of and cause drug resistance for HIV patients.
If you're seeking lower prices on your medicines, please don't risk your health buying from places like the ones in this video. Consult our Safe Savings resources instead.
Watch our video to see examples of these sketchy drug listings.
How can you stop these sites?
Ask your legislators to support the “Domain Reform for Unlawful Drug Sellers” or “DRUGS” Act, which would require domain name sellers to lock and suspend websites when regulators or law enforcement show evidence that they are selling drugs illegally.
Video transcript
HIV survivors can live long lives if their disease is managed, but fake online pharmacies threaten that.
Sub-therapeutic HIV medicine, like the kind sold from sketchy websites, could make your HIV immune to that treatment forever. And many criminals are in this fake HIV drug business.
A recent lawsuit shut down a network that sold thousands of bottles of fake HIV medicines in the U.S. and fake Canadian pharmacies have been selling this stuff online for years. The National Association of Boards of Pharmacy recently showed us some of these websites.
This site sells Americans a generic version of HIV drug Biktarvey called Taffic. They say they are "an authorized retailer, exporter, and supplier of the drug in the USA."
There's no approved generic of Biktarvy in the US. So nobody at the FDA is inspecting their factory for quality or cleanliness.
This “Canadian Pharmacy” claims it sources Truvada from FDA-regulated facilities in the U.S. and India. But Truvada’s manufacturer has a list of who their factories sell to on their website, and they aren’t listed.
Their website has a forged certificate from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
And, their Ontario pharmacy license doesn’t even exist, probably because they aren’t in Ontario, but Quebec.
The National Association of Boards of Pharmacy found over 50 sketchy websites like these freely offering dangerous HIV and Hep C products to Americans.
New federal legislation called the DRUGS Act would change that by giving regulators the power to shut down illegal websites that endanger American patients. Go to safedr.ug/DRUGS-Act to learn more about the legislation, and urge your elected officials to support it.
And if you’re struggling to pay for your medicines, don’t resort to fake pharmacies. Find safer options at safedr.ug/save-safely.