Penn. State’s Center for Technology Assessment’s Daniel Lorence published a paper titled ‘The internet and civil disobedience: examining a new form of e-health behavior,’ in the last quarter issue of InderScience’s International Journal of Electronic Healthcare (IJEH) claiming civil disobedience in the form of illegally purchasing prescription drugs internationally over the Internet is a phenomenon growing quickly.

The research by Lorence suggested that the Internet’s growth as a trusted information source has resulted in people educating themselves with medical and health information from sources other than their doctors, and in turn, increased the direct sale of the prescription drugs they want.

“The FDA continues to obscure the legality of this issue, while still threatening to prosecute consumers, such differences in prices between the USA and the seven wealthy nations, including Canada, largely reflect differing public policies on drug pricing and costs,” said the study’s author, speaking of public policy placing caps and limitations on drug costs in Canada - a policy which many analysts say compounds the patent problem with regard to drug research occurring mostly in the United States.

The study focuses heavily on the rate at which critical medical decisions are made using web-based health information, particularly with sources such as WebMD and the National Institute of Health’s public website, but also frighteningly, the use of Wikipedia and public forums/support groups in assisting with these decisions.

“A corresponding trend is unmistakable: there is a clear and identifiable ‘civil disobedience’ by healthcare consumers and a growing number of benefits managers who use the internet for illegal prescription drug purchases as interpreted by the US Food and Drug Administration (USFDA). This is seen not only in the lay public, but is being adopted by a growing army of government officials and policy-makers as well. This phenomenon carries important social and policy implications as the delivery of healthcare continues to defy national borders and policies,” says the study’s abstract.

The article by Daniel P. Lorence can be found in the International Journal of Electronic Healthcare (IJEH) 2008 Vol. 4: 236-243.

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