Stiffer Measures

BANGKOK: -- FDA opens the market to erectile dysfunction medication, but sufferers will need prescriptions

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) will allow pharmacies to sell erectile dysfunction remedies but only to patients with prescriptions, FDA's secretary general Dr Pipat Yingseri said.

The move comes after the FDA discovered the booming illegal trade via the Internet, where most of the remedies advertised were counterfeit, it said, and might cause adverse side effects.

To date, FDA has registered just three erectile dysfunction products: Sildenafi (branded as Viagra, Elonza and Tonafil), Tadalafil (Cialis), and Vardenafil (Levitra).

Patients with a prescription can purchase them at hospitals and clinics.

Illegal Internet trade

Pipat said that as men with erectile dysfunction are often uncomfortable about buying remedies in person, many had turned to the Internet.

But those with heart problems risked fatal consequences by taking fake erectile dysfunction products, he explained.

"Pharmacists will be told that on no account are they to dispense such a product if the customer cannot produce a doctor's prescription," he said.

Niyada Kietying-Angsulee of Chulalongkorn University's Social Pharmacy Research Unit said that previous attempts to make it legal for pharmacies to sell erectile dysfunction medicine had been opposed as committees ruled the drug was not an essential medicine.

Niyada said she would oppose any FDA attempts to put the plan into action, even if the agency trained pharmacists to ask for prescriptions before dispensing to patients.

'Not the right solution'

"How can the FDA control and examine pharmacies right across country?" she said. The danger of adverse side effects - particularly for patients suffering serious disease - meant the drugs needed to be administered by doctors, she added.

"The FDA has no other realistic option for controlling counterfeit versions of the drug."

Community Pharmacy Association's chairperson Katha Bandittitanukul is also opposed to the FDA's plan, saying some drugstores |are currently selling erectile dysfunction drugs without prescription and at high prices.

"The FDA has not resolved the problem the right way. The fake drugs will still be sold in the market," he said.

-- The Nation 2009-09-17

Seems to me that the FDA is living in cloud-cuckoo land if they have just discovered that Viagra et Al is sold on the internet. Perhaps internet censorship in Thailand is more severe than I thought.

Furthermore, pharmacies have been selling these drugs over the counter without any prescription for years. Just take a walk in Pattaya Walking Street and notice the many 'Viagra' signs (some of them clearly many years old), outside the pharmacies.

Thailand - the hub of ostriches

Simon

Not sure about stiffer measures however, maybe Thailand the "Hub of Stiff Members" would be more correct.

Edited September 17, 200916 yr by Artisi

I'm sure this news will be of profound interest to most of the armchair quarterbacks in TV.

So am I to believe that these drugs were all illegal in Thailand before this announcement and it wasn't possible to get a prescription even if you wanted one ?

I don’t know if at present only doctors and hospitals are allowed to sell these medicines, but the official classification in Thailand is

Special Controlled Drug

A first grade pharmacist shall be on duty at the premises selling modern drugs. Sale to public is on prescription only. Daily purchase and sale record required.

Source: mims.com

Perhaps the FDA spokesperson was talking about changing it to a less strict classification which would still require a prescription but not a daily purchase and sales record.

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Maestro