Millions of people either don’t have prescription drug health care coverage, have limited coverage, or take medications that aren’t on their heath plan’s formula. For Americans, that usually means being stuck with high out-of-pocket prescription costs. When that’s the case, an online discount pharmacy can be a wonderful sanctuary, a place where you can get the medications you need at a fraction of the cost.

There has been a lot of political posturing about bringing Canadian drugs into the United States. Pharmaceutical companies in the United States - and their lobbyists - have a lot at stake in preventing Canadian drugs from entering the United States. Those Americans lucky enough to live in border states can travel to Canada in order to have their prescriptions filled, but those who aren’t often feel as though their options are limited. Again, online discount pharmacies can provide a shield against the high prices of drugs regardless of which state you live in.

Several online discount pharmacies are based in Canada, and fulfill prescriptions with the same drugs available in the United States. In addition to lower prices - up to 70 percent in savings over the same drugs dispensed in the United States - online discount pharmacies offer the convenience of mail, with no waiting rooms, no embarrassment, and with discreet packaging. In addition, online discount pharmacies allow you to comparison shop - an important component when you don’t have prescription health care coverage. Further, drug information is often available on the pharmacy’s website, or via email.

When selecting an online discount pharmacy, it’s important to find one that is reputable. A reputable pharmacy will insist upon having your prescription mailed or faxed to them, and will require you to complete and mail or fax a contact form and a medical history form. Typically, they will ask you to list the medications you are currently taking as well as the prescriptions you wish to have filled. Legitimate online pharmacies will review your list of medications to ensure that your prescriptions will not have harmful side effects or drug interactions. And they will have thousands of medications available, rather than a select few “lifestyle” drugs.

For many people, a discount online pharmacy provides them with the convenience they need, the privacy they desire, and the prices that enable them to spend less money on medications and more money on life’s other necessities.

Recent drug withdrawals and cases of adverse drug effects on patients have stolen the confidence among people in using certain drugs. The only way to instill confidence in patients is to make the promise of safety and adherence to quality standards in available medicines. Here marketing doesn’t work. Only honesty does. And pharmacovigilance signal detection is one of the best ways to detect and prevent adverse events.

Let’s face it; drug safety is an issue because no one is fully aware of what side effects it can have. So it is important to detect an adverse event with the assistance signal detections. The practice of pharmacovigilance allows detection, assessment, understanding and prevention of adverse effects or any other possible drug-related problems. It is carried out by pharmaceutical companies on their products and by government agencies on all medicinal products.

The signals are detected on the basis of spontaneous reporting of adverse cases. These cases are carefully studied and categorized into a database. A pattern is established through a scientific method of computation based on data tables. This gives a fair idea of the potential signals that lead to adverse events

Having detected the potential signals, a validation of whether or not they are signals is made since they are cases when signals occur due to a disease and not really from a dug. Following this, a review of the drug is made to consider its potential risks and benefits, on the basis of which its marketing authorization is revoked or suspended.

This method of detection is a god way to assess the merits of individual drugs since it does not bank upon a single adverse events, but takes into consideration several similar events. In addition to ensuring drug safety, this method also helps detect signals for subsequent adverse events.

Prescription drugs killed 106,000 in hospitals from adverse drug reaction (”properly prescribed and administered”) making these a leading cause of death. Journal American Medical Assoc, 4-15-1998.

Prescription drugs killed 199,000 outpatients. Western Journal of Medicine, June, 2000, p 391. These reports support 305,000 people per year dying from drugs “properly prescribed,” circa 1998. “1998-2005…fatal adverse drug events increased 2.7 fold.” Archives of Internal Medicine, 9-10-2007. Multiplying 305,000 deaths in 1998 by 2.7, 824,000 drug deaths/yr in 2005 exceeds heart disease.

Prescription drugs caused “116 million extra visits to a physician per year, 76 million additional prescriptions a year, 17 million emergency department visits, 8 million admissions to hospitals, 3 million admissions to long-term care facilities [ruined for life]…The total cost was estimated to be $76.6 billion, rivaling the aggregate cost of…diabetes.” Western Journal of Medicine, June, 2000.

“1998-2005…serious adverse drug events increased 2.6 fold.” Archives Internal Medicine, 9-10-2007.

Multiplying the data above (1998) by 2.6, we got 302 million extra visits to a doctor, 198 million more prescriptions, 44 millions emergency department visits, 21 million admissions to long term care, all at a cost of $200 billion for 2005.

Only congress understands such figures, or should, because they approved the TV drug ads in 1997 that led to the 2.7 increase in death (824,000 in 2005) and the 2.6 increase in visits to doctors and emergency departments, admissions to hospitals and long-term care facilities, and the $200 billion in cost.

Congress bears responsibility for enabling the drug companies to deceive this nation as they have done. The Truth About the Drug Companies; How They Deceive Us by Marcia Angell, MD, former editor of the New England Journal of Medicine, now teaching at Harvard, should be required reading for congress. She told 60 Minutes that drug companies spend $400 million/year contributing to re-election campaigns for congressmen and lobbying them. Thanking them, congress approved the Medicare Prescription Drug Plan and now they want “Healthcare Reform” to expand drug coverage to all Americans. Like a smoker, drinker or glutton, we are doing it all to ourselves. Why should taxes pay for someone’s choice to smoke or drink? We are drugging America to death as we ignore personal responsibility and the media sponsored by the pharmaceutical companies, makes health practitioners who encourage supplements to look like quacks as SWAT teams destroy their offices.