The first threat comes from pending legislation in the Senate introduced last May known as the Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property Act of 2011 (PROTECT IP). You may already be aware of this Bill that attempts to categorize all non-U.S. based online pharmacies as a risk to public health and therefore certain target for shut down. If this bill gets passed, our website and all others that sell Canadian drugs and international medicines to Americans could cease to appear and be prohibited from defending themselves against those who shut them down.

The next threat comes from The House of Representatives in a bill introduced in October titled the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA). While SOPA is designed to protect the interests of U.S. businesses and fight counterfeiting, it increases the threatening actions proposed in PROTECT IP and makes them worse. SOPA includes language that inappropriately lumps real licensed pharmacies like ours with rogues.

SOPA makes no effort to distinguish between the good guys like us – legitimate pharmacies that require a doctor’s prescription and sell brand-name medications; and the bad guys – that sell everything from diluted or counterfeit medicine to narcotics without a prescription. Because of this, the bill could shut down the websites of legitimate international pharmacies that offer safe, affordable medications.

The language of SOPA is so vague and broad, that our pharmacy could be shut-down “in the dark of night.” You see, SOPA grants legal immunity to a large list of US companies that have business reasons for wanting us dismantled. They can voluntarily deny service to our legitimate pharmacy businesses without a court order. It empowers hundreds of companies to police the web and shut-down sites based on nothing more than a suspicion of wrongdoing.

PROTECT IP and SOPA are driving legislation toward the White House. These bills play directly into the interests of the Administration, which in December 2010 announced its intention to completely shut down online pharmacy sites by “encouraging” Internet service providers, credit card companies, and search engines to cut off American’s access to them. Passage of these two bills would fulfill this mission.

Many people believe that big pharmaceutical companies are behind these threats. Major drug companies have long tried to persuade the American public that internationally sourced medicines are unsafe. While we agree that drug safety is critical and that rogue pharmacies should be stopped we know that legitimate online pharmacies such as ours should not be punished as a result of these sweeping actions.

There is action you can take to try to prevent this from happening— and we are asking for everyone’s assistance immediately. To voice your concern, join RxRights, a growing coalition of individuals and organizations that are dedicated to protecting and preserving all Americans’ access to safe, affordable medications. You can send an electronic letter directly to your congressional and senate representatives in Washington as well as President Obama through the coalition’s website at www.rxrights.org. Let your elected officials know today that you want and need continued access to affordable medications from safe, licensed online pharmacies like ours. For more information, please visit www.rxrights.org.

According to the Pew Research Center’s Internet and American Life Project, technologies like social networking sites and smart phones have transformed the way people receive and share health care information over the last ten years.

Susannah Fox, Associate Director of Digital Strategy for the Pew Research Centre Internet and American Life Project and keynote speaker at this year’s Medicine 2.0 Conference at Stanford University, calls the phenomenon “peer-to-peer health care.”

“So many people are listening to each other and learning from each other, and not just from institutions,” says Fox, who describes herself as an “internet geologist” mining information. Fox has unearthed two key trends, which she calls:

1) The mobile difference: “If you hand someone a smart phone, they’re more likely to share; they’re more likely to create content and not just consume it.”

2) The diagnosis difference: “An internet user who is living with a chronic disease is more likely to both create and consume user-generated content related to health.”

A survey of over 3000 people conducted by the Pew Research Center showed that, while health care professionals remained the number one resource for those with health concerns, online resources, including peers, are a significant and growing source of health information.

Of the 74% of adults who use the internet, 80% of them have looked online for health information. People are searching the internet for reviews on diseases and conditions, medical treatments, prescription drugs, online pharmacies, doctors, hospitals and clinics.

Many also look for others with the same health concern or experience. Over one third of those surveyed (35%) have read another person’s comments or experiences on health or medical issues on a website, blog, or newsgroup – a concept Fox calls “participatory medicine”.

This trend has spawned innumerable niche websites dealing with both general and specific health conditions, some of them more authoritative than others. Many allow visitors to comment and to interact on discussion boards and online forums.

The trend has also created a surge in the use of online pharmacies. The most obvious reasons are significantly lower prices and convenience – customers simply order their prescription medications online, and they’re delivered to their door. Online pharmacies also offer anonymity to those who may not want their local pharmacist to know they are taking HIV medication, antidepressants or Viagra.

Online Canadian pharmacies are the most popular with Americans. Drugs from Canada are cheaper because the government regulates their prices; allows manufacturers to produce cheaper but chemically identical generic versions sooner, and does not allow drug companies to engage in expensive direct to consumer advertising.

Of course internet health consumers must be aware that anyone can post pretty much anything online, and there is a lot of misleading information and misinformation out there. Also bear in mind that some information posted years ago may be outdated. But according to the Pew Research Center’s Internet and American Life Project, most people (97%) report being helped rather than harmed by health information they found online.