THE QUANTITY of weight-loss drugs detained by the authorities after being bought online by Irish consumers increased by almost 500 per cent last year, the Irish Medicines Board (IMB) has said.
It said there had been a 66 per cent increase in the amount of illegal medicinal products detained during 2010, with steroids, sedatives, drugs claiming to aid weight loss and drugs aimed at combating erectile dysfunction being the most commonly impounded.
The IMB said it was particularly concerned about the increase in the number of illegal weight-loss products detected. Some of those tested were found to contain the no longer permitted active substance sibutramine, which can increase the risk of heart attack or stroke.
The board’s enforcement section confiscated 822,484 dosage units of counterfeit and illegal medicines last year, compared to 494,502 units in 2009. Its enforcement officers, in conjunction with Revenue and Garda officials, detained 680,958 tablets/capsules; 1,665 packs of liquids; 933 packs of creams; and 138,928 dosage units of assorted products deemed to be illegal medicinal products.
There has recently been a number of successful prosecutions by the board in Athy, Co Kildare, and Dublin and last year Revenue seized drugs with an estimated value of €2 million. An ongoing international police operation, dubbed Operation Pangea, is working towards shutting down the websites offering the drugs for sale.
IMB chief executive Pat O’Mahony said the majority of illegal unauthorised medicinal products coming into Ireland were found to have originated in India and he emphasised the dangers of buying medicines online and urged consumers not to risk their health by using unapproved or unauthorised medicines.
Mr O’Mahony said there was “absolutely no way for people to establish whether medicines available on the internet contain what they claim to or if they are in any way effective in treating the illness or condition in question”.
He said some of the medicines impounded had been shown to contain too little or too much of the active ingredient while others contain the wrong active ingredient altogether. “At best people are wasting their money but, more seriously, at worst counterfeit and illegal medicines can pose a serious health risk. The supply of prescription-only medicines via the internet is illegal and no online pharmacy is authorised to operate in Ireland.”
Research carried out on behalf of the medicines board has indicated that the top three reasons people give for buying drugs online were price, privacy and convenience. The profile of the drugs being bought would indicate that privacy concerns are paramount but informed sources say that increasingly people are taking to the web to buy drugs because they want to maintain their lifestyles but have less money to spend on certain drugs.
The main prescription-only products involved in enforcement investigations last year were mood stabiliser such as zopiclone; erectile dysfunction drugs, mainly Viagra and Cialis; weight-loss products, notably those containing sibutramine; hair-loss products; sedative products; performance enhancement products, including anabolic steroids; stimulants; anti-depressants and antibiotics.