Buying Viagra Online Is Not Always Risky

Many men are nervous about discussing erectile dysfunction (ED) with their doctors, especially if the doctor is a woman. If they go online, they find the Internet awash with ‘pharmacies’ that are more than willing to supply answers to their problem. But recently it’s become possible to buy a prescription drug by a regulated process called e-medicine prescribing. Utah was one of the first states to contract with an Internet service for providing Viagra and other PDE-5 (phospodiesterase-5) inhibitors for the treatment of ED. Salt Lake City scientists have evaluated this service, and compare it with the traditional doctor visit-prescription-pharmacy route.

The study, reported in the Mayo Clinic Proceedings, used data from 1,000 randomly selected medical records from patients seeking ED treatment. Half of them used the online prescriber, and the others consulted a physician. They compared the appropriateness of prescription (correct diagnosis, absence of risky drug interactions), correct use of a validated questionnaire, and adequacy of patient education.

The Internet patients were somewhat younger, weighed less, and had fewer accompanying illnesses. Prescriptions should not have been issued in 2.2% of the Internet patients and 9.4% of the traditional-route patients. All the Internet patients completed the full diagnostic questionnaire, compared with less than 1 in 4 of the traditional-route patients. Disease educational material was supplied to 100% of the Internet patients, but to only a third of the regular patients.

Although the two groups of patients were not similar, the analysis shows that safety aspects were not different between the state-regulated online prescription service and traditional face-to-face prescribing; however, there was clear superiority of the Internet prescribing service in a number of respects. And apart from those documented in this study, there’s the added convenience, lower costs, and privacy of online supply. It must be emphasized, however, that this was a carefully regulated service, totally different from those offered by Internet advertising sites or unsolicited e-mails. In particular one should avoid any consideration of medications offered from overseas – the quality may be suspect.