Without an examination you may have drug interactions, and all kinds of nightmares. Good advice from Dr Stanley, make sure you have been examined in person first. This is going to even get a little more complicated too when we start seeing more web cam visits, but those are limited to what can be prescribed to the patient supposedly in the system so perhaps a bit more control there as some issues still require a physical visit to the office. Certainly a web cam could show a cut, bruise, etc. and some other areas that are visible. Some of the drugs online through a doctor you do not know could have questionable origins too, in other words where are they coming from, a reputable pharmacy or pharmacy benefit manager?
Amazing that one doctor had issued thousands of prescriptions in this story. BD
WWLP) - Doctors across the country are cashing in by writing prescriptions online to patients they've never met.
Dr. Torino Jennings of Virginia is pleading guilty in Boston's U.S. District Court to writing thousands of prescriptions for strangers.
Laura Lee Harrington of Belchertown said she's not surprised that people are risking their health for quick prescriptions. She said. "We as a nation just love to have things immediately, and we don't really care how we get them. "Dr. Dirk Stanley of Cooley Dickinson Hospital in Northampton told 22News: "If you mix prescriptions, you can have strokes, heart attacks, kidney failure, liver failure, or even death."
Medications much too easy to get not only for celebs. There is a related post at http://iamsoannoyed.com/?page_id=588
ReplyDeleteAnonymous, you've no clue. In Africa, Mexico, and a good part of the rest of the First World countries, one doesn't have to go through a AMA associate to get basic antibiotics, etc. Only in this country is the overstated fear of drug interaction issues, resistant bacteria, etc., the justification for controlling something as simple as moldy bread (penicillin).
ReplyDeleteWhen it becomes reasonably affordable and doesn't take weeks to get an appointment, such practices will largely disappear. Meanwhile, people are doing what they need to do to get medications, whether because the drugs are too expensive in the States, or it's simply too much hassle to get basics.
Most of this is about drugs already prescribed previously by a physician, and drugs for depression and sexual inabilities. The depression drugs aren't monitored closely enough IMO even when people DO have insurance to pay for the visits, so it's no valid argument to say that they "shouldn't" be getting such drugs without a doctor's supervision.
Like most things, if the road blocks are removed, most people are reasonable enough to take reasonable precautions.