How Lock-and-Suspend Shuts Down Illegal Online Pharmacies and Protects Patients
At any given time, between 30,000 and 40,000 illegal online pharmacies hawk substandard prescription drugs to unsuspecting patients. Law enforcement and government agencies have a steep hill to climb in stopping them, but “lock-and-suspend” shows promise. Our newest Rogue Rx Activity Report explores how locking and suspending the domain names of these sites directly impacts […]
Read More ›New Bill for Online Platform Accountability Looks Beyond Section 230
As has been reported extensively over the past year, social media companies have come under scrutiny both at the national and international levels for not doing enough to prevent their platforms from being used to facilitate illegal drug sales. Despite reports that many popular platforms have stepped up efforts to police content – both TikTok […]
Read More ›Update on DRUGS Act: Bipartisan Bill Seeks to Shut Down Illegal Online Pharmacies
For over two decades, NABP has raised concerns over the vast number of illegal online pharmacies that put Americans’ health at risk by selling medications without a prescription, operating without a license, and peddling substandard, falsified, or counterfeit prescription drugs, including illicit opioids, to patients. Government agencies, including Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), […]
Read More ›How e-Prescribing Trends Impacted the Opioid Epidemic
Before DEA published an interim final rule in 2010, which gave practitioners the option to write prescriptions for controlled substances (CS) electronically, e-prescribing for CS was prohibited in many states. Now, 11 years later, the regulatory and technological landscape has shifted significantly. As part of the larger effort to curb the opioid crisis, many states […]
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 ›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 ›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 […]
Read More ›The Future of Telehealth and the Ryan Haight Act Post-Pandemic
A year into the pandemic, and coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has radically changed our health care system from the pace at which new drugs come to market to how patients access health care and medications. Arguably one of the most dramatic shifts has been the major increase in telehealth usage and the expansion of services […]
Read More ›Internet Platform Accountability and Why it Matters to Public Health
On March 25, 2021, chief executive officers (CEOs) from internet giants, including Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, Google’s Sundar Pichai, and Twitter’s Jack Dorsey, testified before the House Committee on Energy and Commerce on the rise of extremism and misinformation plaguing their online platforms. Although the impetus for this hearing is the lack of action taken by […]
Read More ›Running high from COVID-19 boost, telehealth changes likely to become permanent
Telehealth use had already been growing in recent years, but the social distancing requirements of COVID-19 helped it really take off. According to a CDC analysis, the number of telehealth visits increased by 50% during the first quarter of 2020, compared with the same period in 2019. As we discuss in the September 2020 edition […]
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