Dr. Ariel Liebert: prescription drugs are not goods from an auction site

Suppose I want to get a painkiller that comes with a prescription. I log on to the website, fill out a short form, pay, well, and in a moment I have a prescription for that drug. Is this a healthy situation?

The situation is certainly not healthy and certainly not a healthy trend related to facilitating access to prescription drugs. This is a very disturbing phenomenon. The implementation of such services often lacks real contact with the doctor. Let's remember that the aforementioned prescription painkillers are mainly non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs in higher doses, which can have adverse effects on the gastrointestinal tract. They can also be opioid drugs, which are from the second analgesic ladder, have their own indications and, for example, you can't drive after them.

What solutions, from the point of view of a pharmacist, should be introduced so that, on the one hand, the possibility of remote prescriptions, for example, in the case of prolongation of therapy, is not restricted, and on the other hand, pathologies should be combated?

It seems to me that, first of all, what is needed is education and awareness of what we are dealing with. Even when we go to the Internet Patient Account and open the "prescriptions" module, we see there the item "ordered prescriptions." After all, these are medicines, not a package of shoes ordered from an auction site. Of course, I am in favor of e-prescriptions. They are a very good solution and make life easier, for example, for chronically ill people, for whom there is no need for follow-up laboratory tests, for example. Only let's not call it "ordered prescriptions," but, for example, "reported need for medicines. "I would also be in favor of making the contact with the doctor not of a chat nature, but requiring at least a teleconsultation.

Self-medication is also a big problem, for example with drugs that helped a neighbor.

88 percent of Poles self-diagnose themselves online, and there's nothing wrong with that if you want to learn more about your health. However, there is a problem with verifying sources. Only 14 percent of patients read the leaflets, and here, too, there is a need for awareness-raising. An example is side effects and what the frequency of their occurrence is. Very often, patients give up on therapy because they read in the leaflet that a side effect can happen. Meanwhile, it turns out that in a clinical trial it was found in a very small percentage of patients. I have been involved in education and awareness for 12 years now, and I see good trends. Even advertisements increasingly emphasize that something is a drug and not, for example, a dietary supplement.

As for dietary supplements - we seem to have a problem choosing those that are researched, for example?

It is important to be aware that although a dietary supplement looks very similar to a drug, the process for its marketing approval differs significantly. In the case of a drug, this is regulated by pharmaceutical law. It is a long and expensive process. The approval of a supplement is done within the provisions of the Food and Nutrition Safety Law. All you have to do is register it by sending an email and you don't even have to wait for the application to be processed. People should also be made aware that the inspection of these preparations also takes place under the aforementioned law, which is the same as for food to be bought at the market. Of course, there is nothing wrong with supplementation when it is rational and there are indications for it. I am in favor of supplementation with medicines, but this option is not always possible. Sometimes we just don't have a drug available, as is the case with probiotics. Then let's choose ones that are certified and tested, for which there is some scientific evidence that what is inside is what it should be.