E-pharmacies may cause public health hazard: AIOCD

A body of chemists today warned that e-pharmacies may cause hazard to public health as medicines can't be compared with any other common commodity.
With the advance of technology, e-commerce industry has entered the healthcare space in the form of e-pharmacies.
"E-pharmacies in whatever form or model, now operational in India, are unlawful and current set of law does not allow to operate them.
"It may cause hazard to public health as medicines can't be compared with any other common commodity," All India Organisation of Chemists & Druggists (AIOCD) president J S Shinde was quoted as saying in a statement issued here.

AIOCD also demanded that the Drugs Controller General (India) needs to notify immediately to stop online drug trade and save the public from its probable harmful effects, Shinde added.
It would be dangerous to allow e-pharmacy business model in present condition. It would be like playing with public health and safety for mere commercial benefit of few entities.

The medicine dispensing system needs doctors as prescribers, pharmacists as dispensers and patients as consumers. Hence, it is not like a grocery or cloth, which is bought directly online without consulting anyone, Shinde said.
It was recently observed that some of the online pharmacies either directly or indirectly supply drugs which are prevented by drug laws without strict adherence of prescribed rules.

On one hand government is enacting new rules and regulations to control the misuse of narcotic and psychotropic substances based formulations and misuse of antibiotics, while on the other it may be freely available on so-called online pharmacies. This indiscriminate and uncontrolled selling of drugs may prove hazardous to public health, he said.
According to Shinde, survival of small pharmacies and dependent families, staff, and ancillary services providers may be in danger due to the online medicine trade.
The employment in this sector, all put together, may cross a few crores and that nowhere in advanced countries it is freely permitted, he added.