The Drug Enforcement Administration’s clampdown on rogue pharmacies has left wholesalers with their backs against the wall. Take the case of Cardinal Health. In the fall of 2007, the agency shut down three of the drug wholesaler’s warehouses and pulled its license for, in part, not notifying authorities of unusual spikes in orders of everything from Botox to Vicodin.
Then, last April, Cardinal got sued. Not by the DEA but by legitimate pharmacists demanding their shipments. While Cardinal is the lone wholesaler to be sued by retailers after the DEA action, it is not the only one feeling the pressure. In 2006, Cardinal competitor AmerisourceBergen had its licensed suspended. And a year before that Southwood Pharmaceuticals and Bellco Drug Corporation suffered the same fate.
Many in the pharmaceutical community were up in arms. Last spring, the head of the National Community Pharmacists Association, Bruce Roberts, wrote the agency:
“The DEA's policies result in restricting or preventing pharmacies from obtaining medications for patients with legitimate pain needs. These sweeping, non-specific directives are harmful…It is no surprise that our members report overly broad, uneven, and punitive actions by various wholesalers.”
The association and other drug retailers, however, have not presented alternatives to the DEA restrictions. The most they have done are along the lines of the efforts of the National Association of Board Pharmacists, which has initiated programs to educate consumers about online pharmacies.
For sure, there are no easy solutions to rein in illegal online pharma sites. The DEA has launched programs to educate wholesalers to keep an eye out for questionable activity. But the initiative doesn’t seem to have as much teeth as the Ryan Haight Act, which passed last fall, will...if it works as it should.
The act allows the DEA to provide domain hosts with a list of legitimate websites so they can weed out the shady sites. But this is a complicated process and domain hosts may not have the capacity to take on the added responsibility. Perhaps the DEA ought to compile a database of illegitimate websites. This would make them easier for domain hosts to shut them down.
But this could also pose legal problems for the DEA, which risks being sued by sites that challenge being branded illegal. But unless pro-active measures are taken, wholesalers, pharmacists and, most importantly, consumers will be caught between harsh, punitive measures on one hand and toothless regulation on the other.
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