Buying ED Drugs Online Said to Be Safe

Researchers from Utah say e-medicine -- specifically an online prescribing service -- was found safe for patients seeking erectile dysfunction medication.

One area in which the e-medicine system appeared to excel was patient education. University of Utah researchers noted that 100 percent of the e-medicine clients received written manufacturer product information, and 75.2 percent of e-medicine clients received tailored electronic messages.

In comparison, no medication instructions were recorded for 51.8 percent of patients who received prescriptions through a traditional physician consultation.

The study, published in the Mayo Clinic Proceedings, evaluated care received by patients seeking medication to treat erectile dysfunction after the state of Utah signed a contract with an Internet prescribing service to prescribe erectile dysfunction drugs called PDE-5 inhibitors.

The researchers randomly selected 1,000 patient medical records from patients seeking erectile dysfunction treatment from Jan. 1, 2001, to Dec. 31, 2005. Half used the online prescriber, the e-medicine group, while the other half consulted a physician, the traditional medicine group, for treatment.

Evaluating both systems for these safety criteria, the researchers concluded that the e-medicine system "outperformed the traditional system in most of the safety variables tested."