Online Drug Company Faces 313 Counts

Buying your prescriptions – or even those little blue pills – online might seem a way to save money, but it can have its problem. A San Diego federal grand jury has indicted 18 people with several charges, a total of 313 counts ranging from racketeering to conspiracy to dispense and dispensing of misbranded drugs with the intent to defraud and mislead. If convicted, they face anywhere between three and 20 years in jail, along with millions in fines. Those in court on charges include three physicians, two pharmacists, a pharmacy operator, a credit card processor and the operators of eight Web sites affiliated with Affpower, an online pharmaceutical distribution network which operates both in the United States and abroad.   Affpower has its headquarters in Costa Rica, although its accounting and computer servers are based in Cyprus, with its credit card processor in Israel. According to allegations in court, Affpower received more than a million Internet orders from U.S. customers between August 2004 and June 2006 for controlled and non-controlled prescription pharmaceuticals.   The indictments state that drugs were sold without prescriptions, and that physicians associated with Affpower sites were paid $3 for each prescription they wrote, based on a brief questionnaire the customer filled out, without any patient contact.   It’s alleged that the prescriptions were sometimes inappropriate, and that in some instances no doctor reviewed the orders. Instead, they were approved by an Affpower staffer who’d stolen the identity of a licensed physician.   “The fraudulent and illegal sale of prescription drugs over the Internet poses a serious threat to the health of Americans who turn to the Internet in their need for pharmaceuticals,” said Assistant Attorney General Alice Fisher. “The defendants allegedly exploited that need and provided little or no doctor review while prescribing possibly dangerous drugs, even as they generated millions of dollars in revenues for themselves.”