Luciana Berger – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Luciana Berger on 2014-06-12.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what assessment he has made of the prevalence and effect of unlicensed performance enhancing drugs (a) online and (b) in shops.

Norman Lamb

There are strict legal controls governing the sale and supply of medicinal products in the United Kingdom.

Unlicensed medicines which claim to enhance performance generally claim to enhance either sexual, cognitive or athletic performance.

The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) works with domain name providers to shut down websites which are illegally trading in unlicensed erectile dysfunction medicines and which refuse to come in to compliance.

A UK registered pharmacy may have a presence on the internet; however the requirements of legislation apply equally to both UK internet pharmacies and bricks-and-mortar premises. These legal controls also apply equally to medicines for human use sold or supplied via the internet or e-mail transactions. These restrictions do not apply to countries outside UK jurisdiction where medicines may be classified and regulated differently.

Medicines most commonly associated with enhanced athletic performance are anabolic steroids and human growth hormones. These medicines are controlled as class C drugs under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971.

The MHRA has serious concerns about the availability of medicines being offered via the Internet and issues regular warnings to the public concerning the inherent risks of purchasing medicines online. MHRA advice is that medicines purchased from websites, particularly websites based overseas, cannot be guaranteed to meet set standards of quality, safety and efficacy and advises patients not to purchase medicines in this way.