Chasta, I am asked these questions a lot and it always makes me nervous answering.

No, I have never heard of a mother being prosecuted for importation for personal use. Frankly I think the FDA and relevant authorities simply don't have the resources. And they look awful when they go after those buses of uninsured elderly crossing the Canadian border for affordable medicine because the US healthcare
 system is so broken. But I would never feel comfortable saying to a mom, "it is unlawful but the chances of you getting caught or prosecuted are very remote." 

It is possible and I could imagine a scenario in which a mother would come after you if she got in trouble for importing. Not a likely scenario but theoretically possible.

My importation worry is quite different and not about the law. Internet drug sellers (and remember these companies ask for no prescriptions and are illegal not only in the US but in the countries they claim to import from) frequently sell counterfeit drugs and always sell drugs obtained through undisclosed sources. Canadian pharmacies are not allowed to sell out of Canada over the Internet. So all those websites claiming to be Canadian pharmacies are usually shipping from somewhere else (often Mexico, sometimes New York) and always not legitimate pharmacies. The purchaser can have no idea where the drug was manufactured or whether it contains the appropriate or any active ingredient. Counterfeit trade dress (labels, boxes, pill markings) are a huge illegal industry. An entire branch of the FBI is dedicated to investigating and prosecuting counterfeit drugs. The counterfeit trade dress is so convincing that at least one US drug company makes its own ink with a secret formula so it can definitively identify whether the drug is counterfeit.

How often do we read about US drug companies having facilities shut down after FDA inspections? A few years ago, Shearing Plough had a factory shut down after it put on the market a large number of pediatric asthma inhalers that had no active ingredient. And that was a factory the FDA should have been inspecting. With Internet pharmacies, we can't know who, what or where about the manufacturing. That frankly terrifies me.

Hope that answered your question. :)

yours,
Jake Marcus, JD

-------------

My question is...Has anyone heard of a mother obtaining Domperidone from another country and being prosecuted for this?  Is is actually illegal to order it on the internet?  If we provide mothers the information on Domperidone and they choose to obtain it on the internet, are they going to get in trouble and then come back and sue us?

Thank you,
Chasta Hite, RNC, IBCLC

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