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Censorship Your Rights Online Technology

Pharmacists Convince Search Engines To Self-Censor 63

Posted by timothy from the having-no-self dept.
RogueShopper writes "The National Association of Boards of Pharmacists (NABP) has teamed up with Drugstore.com in a seemingly successful campaign to 'rid search engines of ads from rogue pharmacies.' Overture removed ranked ads at the request of MSN and Yahoo!, and AOL and Google complied, also. In an apparently selfless act Yahoo! also wiped out its entire directory tree for pharmacies. Meanwhile, anyone can cross the border, walk into a Mexican pharmacy and buy whatever they want. Big busines controlling content ... hmmm ... looks like it's getting closer to broadcast television. Thank god for DMOZ.org!" (Here's Google's cache of Yahoo!'s Pharmacies list).
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Pharmacists Convince Search Engines To Self-Censor

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  • More Article Trolling (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Babbster ( 107076 ) <aaronbabb@NoSPaM.gmail.com> on Saturday December 13, 2003 @02:55PM (#7711593) Homepage
    Meanwhile, anyone can cross the border, walk into a Mexican pharmacy and buy whatever they want. Big busines controlling content ... hmmm ... looks like it's getting closer to broadcast television.

    If you mean that illegal product advertising is being weeded out, then, yes, it's getting closer to broadcast television. The online pharmacies we're talking about often require nothing more than a credit card to order whatever drug a person wishes. Like it or not, that's not the way we've decided to do things in the USA because we've decided that there are too many dangerous drugs to let the public have them willy-nilly without a doctor's supervision.

    As far as the snide comment about being able to cross the border to Mexico and buy whatever one eishes, that's exactly right. Of course, an American who does so can then be arrested for smuggling when re-crossing the border.

    This is less about big business (which, frankly, profits when their drugs are bought legally with a prescription, or illegally via an online pharmacy with no prescription) and more about complying with existing laws.

    • Re:More Article Trolling (Score:5, Interesting)

      by GreyWolf3000 ( 468618 ) on Saturday December 13, 2003 @03:09PM (#7711671) Journal

      This is less about big business (which, frankly, profits when their drugs are bought legally with a prescription, or illegally via an online pharmacy with no prescription) and more about complying with existing laws.

      There's still a lot of legal-for-research drugs (triptomines) that are fairly easy to aquire (apply for a research permit, get accepted, then you're "in"). The reason no one cares is because we're too busy dealing with pot.

      Dextromethorphan has recently gotten some news, but there are many others that aren't seeing much airtime. For those who don't know, DXM is an anticongestant agent in cough syrup that, when taken by itself, has extremely potent dissociative and hallucigenic results.

      It is a lot scarier than pot or prescription painkillers, since a lot of kids are drinking cough syrup in order to get the effects (and thereby introducing insane levels of other chemicals in the syrup into their bodies).

      • There are, without question, problems with US drug laws - such as criminalization of the possession of relatively innocuous substances while more damaging substances are legal (marijuana versus cigarettes/alcohol) or unfettered access to over-the-counter drugs by minors (as in your cough syrup example). That doesn't mean, however, that the existing laws should be ignored, especially by "big business" - a category in which I would place Google and Yahoo.
        • Totally...the idea that "big businesses" are screwing the consumer here is a really gross misinterpretation of facts.
          • Don't be so naive.

            If it weren't about making money by shutting down competitors, the businesses wouldn't get involved. They'd just report it to the police and then forget about it.

            But it is cutting into their profits, so it's a holy war with them.
            • Don't be so cynical. Google and Yahoo! are in the business of search engines. If they think people are put off by shady legal drug fly-by-night operations, then they'll pull them off of their search lists.

              Inasmuch as they might be greedy cuthroats, they could also care about the Internet (their source of income), and not want to pollute it and turn off visitors. They also might be nice people.

      • Well then, a lot of kids are pretty stupid for drinking things that they don't understand. Maybe if they educated themselves about DXM, they would realize not to drink cough syrups with other chemicals in them (eg. acetaminophen). This is a matter of education, not control. Though it's not like the information isn't plentiful online anyways.
      • I think that one is dangerous. I had friends who tried a LOT of ways to get fuc'd up in highschool but you could literally see the IQ drop after robotrippin. I think the acid chaged them less in the short term. Long term on the other hand... I have literally seen folks reprogram themselves into a different person with extended acid use. Still don't think any "recreational" drugs should be illegal though. Costs too much, creates too much crime, finances too much violence, blah blah blah.

      • I'm not afraid of DMX. I'm an adult. I know better than to take such stuff. Result: complete protection.

        But what about the children? What we need are age limits, like we have with alcohol. When GreyWolf3000 says

        The reason no one cares is because we're too busy dealing with pot.

        the subtext is that we are so busy because we are trying to forbid cannabis to adults. He is admitting that current policies sacrifice child protect on the altar of adult prohibition.

        • Yes I certainly am. It's your job to protect your kids, not the government's.

          To admit that "current policies sacrifice child protect on the altar of adult prohibition" one has to admit that the "current policies" are working. If they aren't protecting our children from using cannabis, we are sacrificing adult liberty in exchange for nothing.

    • This is less about big business (which, frankly, profits when their drugs are bought legally with a prescription, or illegally via an online pharmacy with no prescription) and more about complying with existing laws. Except they don't profit, because, due to either economic conditions or legal price ceilings in other countries, they're sold for much less... this is subsidized by inflated US prices.
    • If you mean that illegal product advertising is being weeded out, then, yes, it's getting closer to broadcast television. The online pharmacies we're talking about often require nothing more than a credit card to order whatever drug a person wishes. Like it or not, that's not the way we've decided to do things in the USA because we've decided that there are too many dangerous drugs to let the public have them willy-nilly without a doctor's supervision.

      We decided no such thing. The people with money who bu

    • If you mean that illegal product advertising is being weeded out, then, yes, it's getting closer to broadcast television.

      But this isn't weeding out advertising. It's about weeding out web pages that appear in search results. Just because something is illegal (in the US, at the moment), should you be unable to find web pages about it? Should a search for "marihuana" come up empty?

    • Actually, there is a legally permissable amount that can be brought across the border, assuming you follow proper procedure. So not everyone buying drugs in pharmacies in good 'ol Mexico is doing so illegal. That said, I'm told by SWWM (someone who wasn't me) that it used to be fairly easy to circumvent the checks for these things, back about five or six years ago. There are certain things that have no permissable amounts, however, such as oxycodone and a few other severely abusable drugs. People go dow

    • Like it or not, that's not the way we've decided to do things in the USA because we've decided that there are too many dangerous drugs to let the public have them willy-nilly without a doctor's supervision.

      Au contrare. This is EXACTLY the way we've decided to do things in the US. By creating a black market for illegal drugs, we push dangerous drugs onto the street that, if they were regulated and distributed in a manner similar to other recreational substances (read: alcohol and tobacco) under a doctor

  • Changing markets, stale business (Score:4, Insightful)

    by crow ( 16139 ) on Saturday December 13, 2003 @03:05PM (#7711647) Homepage Journal
    On the surface, this is about protecting consumers from pharmacies that will fill perscriptions without a doctor's approval.

    What it's really about is protecting profit margins.

    Sure, there are businesses out there selling questionable or illegal products, but the real concern is the cross-boarder drug purchases. Americans are increasingly re-importing perscription drugs from foreign countries (mostly Canada) where laws and market conditions keep the prices lower than in the United States. The popularity of re-imported drugs has started to impact the profits of the drug companies, and they're fighting back. They're doing everything the can to stop the flow of drugs from Canada. I wouldn't be surprised if they're pushing for the Medicare drug coverage, because once seniors aren't paying for their own drugs, they won't bother ordering them from Canada. (Obviously, the big market for Canadian drugs is uninsured seniors.)
    • MedicationAssist [medicationassist.com] Granted it's only for low income people but in the Bush Economy, more and more people need help.

    • Re:Changing markets, stale business (Score:1, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      I wouldn't be surprised if they're pushing for the Medicare drug coverage . . .

      Jesus Christ, read the paper or listen to the radio once in a while. OF COURSE they are pushing the medicare drug coverage, because part of that bill is a prohibition on Medicare from using it's collective buying power to bargin for better drug deals !

      The Democrats can't evade blame for this one either, they all lined up to vote for it.

      Bargaining for price is the basis of Capitalism. Banning it is called Communism in most pa

      • Calling the current USian government communist is utterly moronic. No, actually, it's beyond words. And this comes from a real communist (party card and all). What could define US politics better than "democratic" isn't "communist" but actually "fascist", if that word hadn't been overused and its meaning distorted over the years. Original fascism (Italy, right after the first World War) was all about gearing all the power of the state towards the private industry needs (with a preference for the military in

    • Re:Changing markets, stale business (Score:4, Informative)

      by ctr2sprt ( 574731 ) on Saturday December 13, 2003 @05:20PM (#7712300)
      Drug companies spend tens of millions of dollars getting new drugs to market. If their investment isn't reimbursed, they'll just stop researching new drugs. The reason Americans pay so much for meds is precisely that nobody else does. Most other countries have government-provided healthcare, which means the gov't sets the prices it pays for meds. Those prices are usually orders of magnitude below levels that would allow drug companies to get their research investment back. So what they do is charge more in the United States, since they know we'll pay it. As a result, we face increasing health care costs across the board, and every year there are new cries for gov't controls of drug prices. Eventually we'll get it, drug companies will stop making money, and they'll get out of the business. Medical innovation will dry up, viruses will adapt to the existing medications, and we'll see epidemics.

      Don't believe me? The flu shot problem, which some people are predicting will turn into an epidemic, is directly caused by price controls of flu shots. None of the flu shot makers were making any money off their product, so they got out of the game. That left only a handful of makers of the vaccine, and they can't keep up with the demand (and they can't keep up with new research: at least one new strain of the flu isn't vaccinated against in this year's shots). So people go without and the vaccine quality gets lower, and next year the problem will only be worse.

      Sorry to go off on a bit of a rant here, but this is one of those cases where it really is important (in a life-threatening way) to protect intellectual property rights. It's probably not the best way, but until we've got another system in place to protect the drug companies who do the research, we can't cheat.

      • Drug companies spend tens of millions of dollars getting new drugs to market.

        Drug companies spend twice as much on marketing as on R & D. And they're making enourmous profits at it.

        Wanna do away with government interference in drug prices? Fine - start by ceasing the issuance of patents.

        No? Then let's admit that the industry needs government interference in drug prices to survive, and make that interference more equitable.

        • Wanna do away with government interference in drug prices? Fine - start by ceasing the issuance of patents.

          You just want people to die from diseases that could be cured pharmacytically, don't you? If a drug company is going to invest tons of money to develop a drug that another companies are just going to sell to drive them out of business, do you think that they are going to invest that money?

          No, they're just going to let you die. And you deserve it.

          -Brent
          • Since you appear to be a conservative, how can you support the big goverment programs that GWB loves? What about his high levels of goverment spending. (55% of which isn't related to the War on Terror)

            How about the GWB Drug Bill that PROHIBITS the goverment from bargining for cheaper drug prices?

            And shoudn't the rest of the world pay for the R&D (R&D that is about HALF of AD SPENDING) that goes into these drugs? Afterall the pharmcos do not pay back the taxpayer when they use taxpayer paid for r
            • Since you appear to be a conservative, how can you support the big goverment programs that GWB loves? What about his high levels of goverment spending. (55% of which isn't related to the War on Terror)

              Supporting, and not liking something are 2 very different things. I might not like big government but this is a Republic, and some people demand big government. Ok, lot's a people demand big government.

              As much as I'd like to do something to reduce government, say privatize education, I recognise that Bus

              • Bush isn't cutting spending. He is growing the goverment at a rate that is unmatched in the past 40 years. And most of the growth in spending isn't from the War on Terror, it is from domestic spending. Spending that the GOP doesn't have to do.

                "I'm unfamiliar with this bill. If you give me a bill number, I'd be glad to research it and write a JE."

                You might have missed it but it was called the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act of 2003. It also makes it illegal for people to
                • Bush isn't cutting spending. He is growing the goverment at a rate that is unmatched in the past 40 years. And most of the growth in spending isn't from the War on Terror, it is from domestic spending. Spending that the GOP doesn't have to do.

                  So, you think Medicare is fine the way it was?

                  Domestic spending is unfortunetly what "most" of the US wants right now. You might not realize it, but it's going to get a lot worse before it gets better. You make it sound like there's some "solution" out there tha

                  • That's the consequence of a Republic form of government instead of a dictatorship.

                    We used to have a real nice Republic - the States had lots of power and could go in their own direction most of the time. That translated into 50 (ok, less at the time) concurrent experiments in whatever the problem domain was. (e.g. healthcare for old people) Some worked, some failed, and lessons were learned.

                    Then we got the 17th ammendment and the states lost all their power. The states used to have a say in the legisl

          • You just want people to die from diseases that could be cured pharmacytically, don't you?

            Go take your medication (ah, irony), and reread what I wrote, mmkay?

            I'll explain it again, a little slower this time.

            Some people claim to be again any government interference in drug prices. However, they are for drug patents. Drug patents are a form of government interference in drug prices (in that in granting an artificial monopoly they act to push up drug prices). Therefore, being against government interfe

            • I'll explain it again, a little slower this time.

              I'll type a little slower this time.

              I am for drug patents and against govermental price controls. I am for allowing pharmycetical companies to have control of the drugs they create, and this includes price, which should be what the market will bear, not an artificial government price designed to keep the company from making a profit.

              -Brent
        • Drug companies spend twice as much on marketing as on R & D.

          This is silly, and it's bad because it's oft-repeated.

          First of all, the data [tilrc.org] that you refer to looks at expenses that include marketing/advertising AND administrative expenses, so it's disingenous to say what you're saying. Let's take Pfizer, for example. Look at the financial statements in their annual report [sec.gov].

          On revenue of $32 billion in 2002, they spent $5 billion on R&D (about 16% of revenue) as opposed to $10.8 billion on SI&
      • And yet the drug companies don't payback the tax payers who underwrite a considerable portion of the research that they use.

        Plue, the drug companies spend 50-100% more each year for ads than R&D.

        Lastly, the VA, US Military, and a few other branches of the goverment ARE ALLOWED to purchase drugs from Canada. But we, the people the goverment is susposed to represent, can not.

        That is wrong.

        And I do have to wonder why the drug companies don't CURE things much anymore, they just TREAT them for the rest
      • Yes, pharmaceutical companies do spend quite a bit on developing some drugs, but they don't spend a nickel on others. One case in point is Taxol, a drug from the Pacific Yew tree and developed by the National Cancer Institute (NCI). The NCI gave the exclusive right to use all the data they had on Taxol, one of if not the largest selling cancer drug, to Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMS) for the measley price of supplying the NCI with $5 million of Taxol. The actual company that makes Taxol, as BMS doesn't make i

  • classic slashdot flamebait (Score:4, Insightful)

    by mithras the prophet ( 579978 ) on Saturday December 13, 2003 @03:09PM (#7711665) Homepage Journal
    Pharmacists Convince Search Engines To Self-Censor

    Umm, declining to accept purchased advertisements for illegal products is not exactly censorship.

    - If Google removed the sites from their search index, that would be censorship.
    - If Google declined to accept ads for legal products that it didn't like, that might be questionable, but it wouldn't be censorship. cf. newspapers declining to accept advertisements for pornography.
    - But Google declining to accept ads for illegal products? Wake me up when there's news.
    • - If Google removed the sites from their search index, that would be censorship.

      No, it wouldn't. That would be a corporate decision by Google.

      If The Government forced google to remove them, THAT would be censorship.

      Jason.

    • Google already does the 2nd one on the list Google Search Engine [brassroots.org]
      Refuses Business from Gun and Knife Advertisers(warning, site provides a very loaded point of view) and more power to them, if they don't want to do business with someone that's their business.

  • Slashdot editors fooled again! (Score:4, Interesting)

    by jmd! ( 111669 ) <jmd@pFREEBSDobox.com minus bsd> on Saturday December 13, 2003 @03:27PM (#7711739) Homepage
    Let's see. Someone who know's all about the NABP, who writes in with a carefully worded spin to rouse up the typical slashdot reader.

    Oh yeah, and his "news article" is hosted on "www.rankforsales.com", a search engine positioning company.

    Sounds like the poster is the same guy that's always e-mailing me trying to sell me Viagra on the cheap. No wonder he's disgruntled.
  • Meanwhile, anyone can cross the border, walk into a Mexican pharmacy and buy whatever they want.
    Well if I crossed the border then I'd be in England, unless you mean "cross the border in a plane and then fly several thousand miles". Kindly remember that Slashdot is read all over the world, including quaint little backwaters like my own home town of Scotland, UK. :-)
  • Where are these magical Mexican Pharmacies that will sell you anything without a recipe? I'm mexican, and last time I checked, the pharmacy down the corner still required you to show a prescription to let you buy anything stronger than a cough syrup.

    If the article poster meant that Mexican pharmacists are more easily bribed, well, that's another matter, and depends entirely on the pharmacy. Both for the US and Mexico.

    Anyway, I think this is a good thing. Americans are overmedicated. Between Prozac, Ritalin and Valium you guys will end up a bunch of happy zombies.

    • Re:Mexican Pharmacies don't require a recipe? (Score:1, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      It may be different further into the interior of Mexico (don't know, never been there) - but the one place I do know about, the farmacias in Algodones (I am probably spelling that wrong) southwest of Yuma, will sell you just about any script you want (within reason - at one time you could get some heavy stuff, but not lately), just ask - they write the script on a script pad from some doctor, give you a business card for the doctor, get your shit, write the receipt, and stick it all in a bag - border guards

    • Re:Mexican Pharmacies don't require a recipe? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by fuzzybunny ( 112938 ) on Sunday December 14, 2003 @02:50PM (#7718372) Homepage Journal

      I was travelling around the Yucatan a few years ago when I got hit by a major case of Montezuma's revenge. Badly, as in memory leak on four major system interfaces. At the same time.

      I walked into a pharmacy around Merida and asked them (rather, my girlfriend asked them, as I'd just spent a night on the can holding a trash bin) what they'd recommend, and the dude forked over some dubious-looking pillbox. Plugged it right up, *plop*, and got rid of the nauseaheadachedizzynessblurryvisionetcetera in one shot.

      During the same vacation, I picked up a fairly major sunburn, and was sold some ointment that just made the pain and redness _disappear_. It was uncanny.

      My roommate back home at the time was a Roche lab technician; he blanched when he saw what I'd bought. "They're allowed to sell this shit? Legally?" He never did tell me what was in it, but damn, it was sure effective.

      So no, I guess Mexican pharmacies are probably not prescription free, but I assume they take a far more pragmatic approach to what requires a prescription, like a lot of the world (judging by my mom's nosedrops that she used to have when living in Europe--.05% cocaine :-)
      • Yeah, I guess you're right about that. They do sell stronger stuff without a prescription. Still, getting the really tough ones, like antidepressants such as Rivotril, definitely involves showing a doctor's prescription. And that's heavily controlled too (doctors can't prescribe too much of it).
  • Er... it's not mine.

    Now if only the pharmacists association would go after phoney radio ads...
  • Yeah, maybe the Pharm. companies would have a lot more cash if they didn't spend millions of dollars advertising on national TV and radio to promote products that are only available by 'script. They can't be cost effective, and not everyone in the population needs to know about them - nexium... your damn purple pill commercials on the radio that say nothing about what the product does, but for some reason every man woman and child on the planet needs to see their doctor immediatly to ask about the PURPLE P

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