Pharmacist Awareness Week (PAW) is March 1 to 7 this year, with the theme: “Your pharmacist is an important companion on your journey to good health.”
As such, pharmacist groups would like to remind everyone that although being informed does help you make good decisions about your health, a website may not contain all the information you need to make an informed decision.
Use caution when searching for health information online and stick to reliable sites. Go to canadian-health-network.ca to link to more than 5,000 internet-based resources.
Don’t replace face-to-face contact with your health care provider with information from the internet. Talk to your pharmacist or doctor about the information you found – he or she can help you apply it to your situation.
Buying Online
At any time, you can go online and order prescription drugs, experimental drugs and all kinds of “miracle cures” or “scientific breakthroughs.”
Beware of claims that seem too good to be true. The internet is very difficult to regulate and websites can be created to look like legitimate pharmacies, when in fact both the sellers and the products are illegitimate. Purchasing a medication from an illegal website puts you at risk – you may receive a contaminated or counterfeit product, the wrong product, an incorrect dose, or no product at all.
When you’re looking for health answers online, ask yourself: is the website reliable? Do I really understand the information? How can I be sure I am making the right decisions about my health? Does this information come from a site that is making a sales pitch for a product?
Many pharmacies have their own websites that provide helpful information and some offer the opportunity to purchase products online. Check with your pharmacy to see if it has such a site.
