Posts Tagged: "online pharmacy"

Twitter’s popularity has not only benefited the legitimate side of the pharmaceutical industry. A study released in December, supported by both the Global Health Policy Institute and the Alliance for Safe Online Pharmacies, found an empirical link between all Twitter content and content aimed at the illicit drug sales. A survey of two week’s worth of posts shared on Twitter, involving the analysis of more than two million tweets, turned up 45,000 tweets which encouraged drug abuse. The survey found that more than three-quarters of tweets both pertaining to the non-medical use of prescription medications and including a hyperlink to a sales affiliate related to the anti-anxiety drug Valium.

Unfortunately, the high cost of pharmaceutical medications is why about 50 million adults between the ages of 19 and 64 do not fill out a prescription every year. Medications purchased over the Internet can cost up to 90 percent less than the same medication purchased in a brick-and-mortar pharmacy. It is also easy to understand those cost savings given the ingredients found in online pharmaceuticals. Consumers obviously need better protections to make sure that the medication they’re purchasing is the medication are ordering and not drywall or rat poison.