THE TRUTH ABOUT INTERNET PHARMACIES

The following information should be helpful.  Remember, a staff member at Palmetto Animal Clinic located in Palmetto, Florida are only a phone call away to assist you.

With the recent emergence of Internet pharmacies, many pet owners have questions regarding their safety and credibility.  The American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) appreciates the rising cost of health care for pets as well as humans, but cautions pet owners to be aware of the highest quality of care for your animal. You may also check the FDA link provided for additional information regarding online pet pharmacies. FDA Animal and Veterinary Link

If you wish to purchase medications from an Internet or mail order pharmacy you are welcome to do so. However, it is important to know the following:

• Please be aware that there are times when we cannot authorize prescription medications.  By law, we can only authorize prescription medication from an outside source if we would normally have prescribed it for your pet ourselves, and for a pet that we are monitoring the condition for which it is being prescribed.

• For some medications, such as prescription flea medicines, this may be as simple as your pet having been examined here within one year.  For others such as antibiotics, your pet must have been seen for the specific condition and may need to be examined before we can authorize such medication.  Medications such as Rimadyl, Previcox and Deramaxx require periodic blood testing in addition.  Heartworm preventative requires that we have examined your dog with in one year and that your dog has had his/her annual heartworm test and is being correctly treated with heartworm preventative.

• We cannot authorize any medications for any pet we have not seen for more than a year.  These statements are true regardless of whether we dispense it here or you get it elsewhere.

• Some Internet pharmacies have recently been trying to make the public believe that the only reason their veterinarian will not authorize is that the veterinarian is trying to sell you the medication themselves at a higher cost to you and profit to them. Not true.  All businesses, including Internet pharmacies need to make a profit.  Your veterinarian's priority however, is the health and safety of your pet.

• Many of these internet pharmacies are actually operating illegally but it takes time to shut them down.  To increase their profit, they often buy medications from other countries in large quantities, getting discounts that allow them to sell less expensive, slightly different or completely counterfeit medication.

• Often these pharmacies are actually more expensive due to extra costs hidden in shipping fees.  We try very hard to keep our heartworm and flea preventative medications as low as we can so that there is little or no benefit to you to resort to supporting such places.

• There have been a great number of lawsuits and complaints filed against them for illegal practices, in acquiring and dispensing medications.

• Due to the very questionable practices of many Internet pharmacies we will no longer communicate with them.  Instead, we work directly with our clients and upon request can provide a written prescription which they can submit to their pharmacy of choice, Internet or otherwise.