{"id":59505,"date":"2025-08-11T07:58:07","date_gmt":"2025-08-11T07:58:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/59505\/"},"modified":"2025-08-11T07:58:07","modified_gmt":"2025-08-11T07:58:07","slug":"public-urged-not-to-buy-medicine-from-unverified-websites","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/59505\/","title":{"rendered":"Public urged not to buy medicine from unverified websites"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The public should not buy medicines from unverified websites, the Irish Pharmacy Union has warned.<\/p>\n<p>The IPU said purchasing counterfeit medicine could pose serious risks to a person&#8217;s health.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking on RT\u00c9&#8217;s Morning Ireland, President of the IPU Tom Murray said any medicine being sold from an unverified source should be of &#8220;particular concern&#8221; because a person does not know what is in the medicine.<\/p>\n<p>He added that some &#8220;drugs can contain nothing&#8221; and others can contain toxic ingredients.<\/p>\n<p>Mr Murray said that the most popular counterfeit drugs are Botox and weight loss or diabetes treatments, such as Ozempic and Mounjaro.<\/p>\n<p>He said that there were over 1,700 units of Botox seized last year by the Health Products Regulatory Authority.<\/p>\n<p>He also warned that unverified websites could be offering incorrect information or advice.<\/p>\n<p>Mr Murray said that Ireland has a highly regulated supply system which &#8220;guarantees the efficiency and safety of medicines&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>He added that the only place to buy medicine safely is through pharmacies.<\/p>\n<p>The HPRA found <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rte.ie\/news\/health\/2025\/0430\/1510308-hpra-illegal-medicines\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">there was a 14% increase in the seizure of illegal medicines last year.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>More than a million units of illegal medicines were seized by the HPRA in 2024.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The public should not buy medicines from unverified websites, the Irish Pharmacy Union has warned. The IPU said&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":59506,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[64,63,137,490],"class_list":{"0":"post-59505","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-medication","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-health","11":"tag-medication"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59505","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=59505"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59505\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/59506"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=59505"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=59505"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=59505"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}