Help Us Spread the Word About Fake Pills Online
At the end of September, the DEA released a warning: The quantity of fake pills online has reached dangerous levels. Already this year, DEA seized 9.5 million counterfeit pills. Two out of five of these pills contain a lethal dose of fentanyl. Increasingly, methamphetamine is added. This news is sobering, but not surprising. Just a few weeks before DEA’s public safety alert, we took to the airwaves […]
Read More ›Why Words Matter When Treating Substance Use Disorder
Sometimes, society has trouble catching up with what science teaches us. For example, addiction science. Decades of research have proven that addiction is a medical disorder that affects the brain, not a moral failing. But centuries’ worth of stigma remains. Only 13% of people struggling with opioid use disorder will seek treatment. Part of the problem is that the stigma is encoded within the language we use to describe addiction and its effects, with […]
Read More ›FDA’s Online Opioid Summit – How Internet Stakeholders Can Proactively Reduce the Availability of Opioids Online
Earlier this month, the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) held its third Online Opioid Summit, a day-long event convening representatives from prominent technology and social media companies, academic researchers, and experts from public health nonprofits, including NABP, to discuss ways to collaborate to reduce the availability of opioids on the internet. Introduced in […]
Read More ›Why Medicine Sold on Social Media Can Be Deadly
If Charlie had known how prolific fake pills on social media were, would he still be alive? It’s a haunting question for his parents, Ed and Mary Ternan, because the answer is probably “yes.” Had he known, maybe he wouldn’t have taken a single pill last year, bought on social media, to relieve his back pain. He thought it was a painkiller, but instead it was a […]
Read More ›How Washington’s Response to Cyberattacks Impacts the Health Care Sector
Cyberattacks targeting the nation’s critical infrastructure have become increasingly prevalent over the last few years, but, during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, attacks across all sectors have rapidly accelerated. Greater emphasis on remote work and business operations have created the “perfect storm” for cybercriminals to exploit security flaws within many organizations, especially the health […]
Read More ›National Poll Finds That Americans Are Prioritizing Cost and Convenience Over Safety When Buying Medications Online
Online pharmacy use in America is growing, but a survey conducted by the ASOP Global Foundation suggests that Americans’ knowledge of the risks is not. In June 2021, building on a similar 2020 survey conducted by the Alliance for Safe Online Pharmacies, 1,500 Americans across the nation were asked about their perceptions and use of […]
Read More ›Moving Through the Pandemic Into the Future of Health Care
NABP has a long history of partnering with health care regulatory and professional associations to protect public health, and COVID-19 kicked these collaborations into high gear. We reached out to the leaders of several of these partner organizations to share their insights from the past year and how they see the lessons learned impacting the […]
Read More ›Cyberattackers Continue to Threaten the COVID-19 Supply Chains
In early December 2020, as United States and European governments readied their distribution plans in anticipation of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccine authorization, law enforcement agencies prepared for an onslaught of various types of criminal activity and organized crime linked to COVID-19 vaccine distribution. Similar to the predatory criminal behavior seen earlier in the pandemic, […]
Read More ›Nonprescription Insulin Scam Puts Patients at Severe Risk
NABP’s accreditations and inspections provide a unique opportunity to observe drug safety issues from a national perspective in both pharmacy practice and drug distribution. Through the processing of accreditation applications of digital pharmacies and drug wholesale distributors, we have recently observed schemes involving nonprescription insulin that pose important health threats to patients. While these pharmacies and wholesalers cannot become NABP accredited until corrective measures have been taken and they have ceased such activities, these schemes continue to threaten patients in non-accredited facilities. We hope that creating awareness of these activities […]
Read More ›How Online Drug Dealers Exploit Social Media Algorithms
This month marks one year since Charlie Ternan, a 22-year-old, soon-to-be college graduate, was found unresponsive in his room after taking what he thought to be Percocet® to alleviate his back pain. The pill was unfortunately not a legitimate pain medication but was instead a fentapill, a counterfeit drug containing the synthetic opioid fentanyl. Charlie purchased […]
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