Anesthesiologists urge police to take down "life-threatening" illegal medicines sites
The Dutch Society of Anesthesiology is urging law enforcement to take down websites selling illegal medications, like Funcaps and Slaappillen.net, as quickly as possible. They are seeing more hospital patients becoming unwell when the meds they bought online mix with the medicines hospitals administer, EenVandaag reports. “This is truly life-threatening,” physician Anton de Bruin told the program
“It’s really very dangerous to order medications through these kinds of websites,” De Bruin said. “The normal quality controls for medications don’t apply to these kinds of websites.” So you don’t know whether there are any contaminants in the medication or whether it's the correct dosage.
Sites like Funcaps typically sell medications that need a doctor’s prescription. There’s a very good reason for that. “They take into account other medications you’re taking or any medical conditions you have,” De Bruin said. They check dosages and perform medical follow-ups to check that the meds are working as they should.
These unlicensed medications are now also becoming aproblem for anesthesiologists, the doctors who administer anesthesia to patients in hospitals for surgeries. They need to know what medication a patient is on, or significant risks can arise. “If we don’t know what you’re taking or in what dosage, heart damage, lung damage, brain damage, or other damage can occur.” And that’s if you survive.
The danger of these illegally supplied substances became clear at the end of last year when the Public Prosecution Service (OM) announced that the authorities were investigating 49 deaths linked to medicines bought on Funcaps. The owners of Funcaps were arrested in the summer.
Despite the enormous risks, there are still websites selling these kinds of medicines. “If these kinds of websites are tracked down and taken offline, I think that will already help a lot,” De Bruin said.
