[Heidi Collins, Cnn Anchor:] This year American consumers will spend an estimated $15 billion to buy drugs over the Internet. Some of those drugs will be purchased through legitimate Web sites, but not all. And according to an investigation by "Prevention" magazine, people could be risking more than their health. Senior editor Laura Petrecca is joining us now this morning with more on all of this. So what's the bottom line here? I mean there are certainly some dangers to be looking out for.
[Laura Petrecca, Senior Editor, "prevention":] Anybody yes, there is. And the big bottom line is that anybody who has got a computer and credit card or cash can get any drug they want. And that's something you should be aware of. Especially if you're a parent and you've got teenagers going online. Or if you're a citizen that actually thinking about ordering your drugs online, there's some risks involved if you go an illicit site.
[Collins:] And there are certainly a lot of people who are doing this now.
[Petrecca:] Yes.
[Collins:] I want to know, what drugs are they looking for? I mean there are probably more popular than others.
[Petrecca:] It's all across the board but a lot of people are going for the lifestyle or embarrassment drugs. These are drugs like Viagra, hair growth drugs, birth control pills, weight loss medication that you don't want to go to your doctor and have a face to face visit. And you don't want to go to your corner pharmacist and say, I need this specific drug to cure me.
[Collins:] Unless you whisper. What about the differences in price? Are they really that significant?
[Petrecca:] You know what? Prices are all across the board. When you go to certain sites, could be $2 a pill, if you go to another site it could be $20 per pill. That's the chance you're taking if you don't know what you're doing. At "Prevention" we say go to FDA sanctioned Web sites, the ones that are the ones that are online arms of legitimate pharmacies such as CVS.com. And we also at Prevention.com have a list of those sites. Once you start going overseas areas, you don't know what you're going to get and you don't know what price you're going to pay.
[Collins:] If people, in fact, do this online, what are some of the practical ways that, as you mentioned, parents can actually protect themselves?
[Petrecca:] I think the first and most important thing is to be educated about ordering medications from illicit sites. You can get expired medication, mislabeled medication. We've actually found people that got counterfeit medication. It could have sugar of starch in there as opposed to the active ingredient. And in some scary can get some
[Collins:] What about Canadian Web sites? An chance those are a little bit safer?
[Petrecca:] People think Canadian is going be safe, but you're taking your chance there a little bit as well.
[Collins:] Why do you think that Canadian's going to be safe?
[Petrecca:] I think people in America think it's right here, it's close to us, everyone's doing it. Certain government leaders are saying order drugs from there. We found some sites that had Canadian maple leafs on them or had Canada in their name actually shipped their medications from places such as India. You really have to be careful before you're going outside the U.S. system.
[Collins:] Bottom line here, do the benefits, do you think, outweigh the risks by going to the Internet for your prescriptions?
[Petrecca:] I think if you go safe sites that are sanctioned by the FDA you can have great price comparisons, 24 hour access and privacy, and you're not taking risks. Once you go outside of that area it gets really scary.
[Collins:] And quickly, it's not just prescription. We were talking during the break about contacts. I wear contacts. I can go online and get my prescription refilled an refilled without going to the eye doctor to have it checked. There are probably lots of different instances of this.
[Petrecca:] It;s true. And if you miss out on a face to face doctor interaction,
[Collins:] Laura Petrecca, Thank you for coming in. Appreciate it. TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com