Today, a considerable percentage of the medicine that patients consume in countries like the US comes from online pharmacies. Platforms that review online companies have also grown in number. A basic ‘Online pharmacy reviews 2020’ search will prove as much. People use online stores because they are cheaper and more convenient. However, governments have continued to resist their expansion because they pose a serious danger, one that most consumers keep ignoring.
Risks of Using Online Pharmacies
The reason online pharmacy reviews 2020 are so popular is that some customers know that online drugstores are dangerous. This is why they endeavor to investigate every medical store that has piqued their interest before they transact with it. However, they are the minority. Most patients are completely oblivious to the dangers that these companies pose, dangers, and risks that include the following:
✔ Counterfeit Drugs
If medical research is to be believed, one-third of all the drugs that internet drugstores sell are counterfeit. Counterfeit drugs either have no active ingredients or a lower volume of the active ingredients than their labels suggest.
Some counterfeit products contain toxins. They will either poison you or fail to deliver the results they promised. In other words, your health will deteriorate until you die. Counterfeit drugs are the biggest threat to patients that use online stores. They are almost impossible to detect for the layman and most of them are quite cheap which is why they are so tempting.
✔ Overdose
Online pharmacies encourage overdoses. When you visit a doctor, not only do they prescribe the right medicine for your situation but they will specify the best dose. Most of the people that purchase products from online platforms do so without consulting a doctor.
This kind of self-medication is dangerous. Not only are you more likely to take the wrong medication for your situation but you have no way of determining the proper dose. If you take a lower dose than expected, your condition will get worse. If you take a higher dose, you could die. That isn’t even taking the dangers of drug interactions into account.
✔ Quality
Counterfeit drugs are the biggest problem facing the online pharmaceutical field. But they are not the only problem. Even if the drugs you have purchased online possess all the active ingredients, that doesn’t account for the quality of the medicine in question. The drugs that traditional pharmacies sell are expensive. But their quality can be trusted because their manufacturers are licensed companies that must adhere to a specific safety standard. You have no way of identifying the source of the medicine sold online.
A lot of the merchandise floating around on the internet is cheap because it is made by illegal firms whose products cannot pass any of the relevant safety standards. Some of them have contaminants that could compromise your health in the long term. Few customers realize that their online purchases are only cheap because they are low-quality. Online Pharmacy Reviews 2020 are always warning their visitors about this issue but that has done little to encourage consumers to apply greater diligence whenever they make online purchases.
✔ Addiction
People that make online purchases are more likely to fall prey to addictions. Every time a doctor prescribes a drug with an addictive component, they will caution patients about its use. They will also prescribe a dosage that is less likely to result in an addiction.
That safety net does not exist with online pharmacies. Most of them have no interest in warning you about the addictive aspects of their products. The fact that they don’t provide guidance where the dosage is concerned means that you are more likely to abuse the product in question.
✔ Prescriptions
Most online pharmacies do not expect customers to present valid prescriptions. In other words, they allow patients to buy pills without first consulting a doctor. This encourages self-medication which is risky behavior.
Lay people that have no medical knowledge cannot hope to prescribe appropriate treatments for their illnesses. Most people tend to treat symptoms rather than the disease. This allows their ailments to deteriorate into life-threatening conditions some of which are incurable.
✔ Age
Online pharmacies allow children to self-medicate. A child cannot buy prescription drugs from a store, not without first presenting documentation. This safeguard does not exist with online pharmacies. Because their objective is to make money, they have no qualms about making sales to anyone that can pay regardless of their age.
✔ Scams
Some people think that counterfeit medicine is the only significant threat surrounding online drugstores. And because online pills are so cheap, some of them are more than happy to take that risk if it means securing the medical products they need.
They do not realize that some online stores are scams. They don’t sell actual medicine, not even counterfeit pills. Their only objective is to trick people into volunteering personal, medical, and financial information. A lot of credit card fraud occurs through pharmacies on the internet. Anyone that makes a purchase from an online platform runs the risk of losing their money and personal information. This leaves them vulnerable to identity theft.
✔ Law
The purchase of drugs from the internet is illegal in some countries. While such laws are rarely enforced, you still run the risk of incurring a hefty fine if the authorities in your area catch you importing medicine.
Conclusion
There is no doubt that internet pharmacies are risky ventures. However, one cannot blame customers for flocking to these entities. Drug prices are simply too high and some people have no choice but to rely on these companies to treat their illnesses. This is why so many governments are working hard to deploy mechanisms that can protect such people from fraudulent internet pharmacies. They have also created resources that people can use to investigate the authenticity of an online medical store before making any purchases.
