While the internet is home to many legitimate pharmacies, it is also host to a growing number of businesses which operate illegally but have a semblance of respectability and legality. These online pharmacies often sell substandard or counterfeit medicines to anyone willing to pay for them, whether or not they have a valid prescription. Illegal online pharmacies purporting to be proper pharmacies can put your health at risk.
Buying medicines online significantly increases the risk of exposure to potentially lethal, unlicensed, counterfeit or substandard medicines. These medicines, even if they happen to be genuine, may have been repackaged, stored or transported incorrectly, or may come with foreign language patient information leaflets (PILs), all of which could confuse people, and may result in some people not taking their prescribed medicines in the proper way.