We investigate the manipulation of web search results to promote the unauthorized sale of prescription drugs. We focus on search-redirection attacks, where miscreants compromise high-ranking websites and dynamically redirect traffic to different pharmacies based upon the particular search terms issued by the consumer. We constructed a representative list of 218 drug-related queries and automati...

During the years 1972--76 drug prescriptions and sales of drugs were surveyed in Iceland. Compared with the other Nordic countries, except Denmark, sales of the psychotropic drugs which may lead to addiction were highest in Iceland, as previously reported. Here we explain the efforts of the Icelandic health authorities to reduce the legitimate consumption of psychotropic drugs. These efforts ar...

Pharmaceutical companies have long focused their marketing strategies on getting doctors to write more prescriptions. But they lose billions in potential sales when patients do not take their prescribed drugs. Getting patients to "adhere" to drug therapies that have unpleasant side effects and questionable efficacy requires more than mere ad campaigns urging patients to talk to their doctors. I...

Introduction After 10–15 years and $800 million, a pharmaceutical company developed a new drug candidate that successfully passed all the Food & Drug Administration (FDA) mandated clinical trials and is now ready for sale to patients in the United States. There is a clear reason for the eagerness of drug companies to manufacture a generic version of its pioneer equivalent once it is no longer u...

OBJECTIVE There has been a sharp increase in the abuse of prescription opioid analgesics in the United States in the past decade. It has been asserted, particularly by several governmental and regulatory agencies, that the Internet has become a significant source of these drugs which may account to a great extent for the surge in abuse. We have studied whether this is correct. DESIGN We asked...

INTRODUCTION The Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act regulates the sales and marketing of tobacco products in the United States; poor adherence by tobacco retailers may reduce the effectiveness of the Act's provisions. The objectives of this study were 1) to assess whether and to which provisions retailers were adherent and 2) to examine differences in adherence by county, retaile...

BACKGROUND This study interviewed community pharmacists in Shanghai and Guangzhou for their perception of the popular categories of over-the-counter (OTC) Chinese medicines and the factors affecting customer preferences for OTC Chinese medicines. METHODS A cross-sectional survey was carried out in six main administrative districts in Guangzhou and eight main administrative districts in Shangh...

OBJECTIVES This study sought to assess relations of laws prohibiting over-the-counter syringe sales (anti-OTC laws) to population prevalence of injection drug users and HIV prevalence or incidence among 96 US metropolitan areas. METHODS A cross-sectional analysis was used. RESULTS Metropolitan areas with anti-OTC laws had a higher mean HIV prevalence (13.8% vs 6.7%) than other metropolitan ...

Part D represents the largest expansion of Medicare since the program’s inception in 1965. Though initially projected to cost the federal government $780 billion over its first ten years (2006–2015), it has been running substantially under budget. This is due primarily to three factors. The first is that fewer new branded drugs have been invented and launched in the United States, with the resu...

In line with the global markets’ current trend, the Palestinian market has recently witnessed consecutive implementations of different sales technologies by leading firms in different industries; one of these technologies is the Sales Force Automation (SFA) technology. However, although the adoption and use of sales technologies have been attractive topics for IT literature over the last two de...