Morning after pill for sale on eBay for just £5
Experts warn women of health dangers after Mail investigation
THE morning after pill is being sold illegally on eBay for just £5, a Daily Mail investigation has found.
Experts say women are playing roulette with their health as so little is known about the potential harm.
The powerful contraceptive can cause serious side effects and has been linked to a fatal complication in pregnancy if taken too late.
It is only available legitimately in the UK from GPs, sexual health clinics and pharmacists after the woman is asked detailed questions, or over the internet from a handful of chemists following an online consultation with a doctor.
Yet the Mail found it is being sold to British women on eBay by foreign touts who do not ask any questions about their age, underlying health, any medications they take or when they had unprotected sex.
Delivery takes up to two weeks – too late for emergency use. But experts are worried women are stocking up ‘ just in case’ and sparing themselves a potentially embarrassing consultation with a GP or pharmacist.
There is also concern that young girls are buying it online in secret and taking it when it arrives, una- ware it is no longer effective. Women can get the morning after pill free from their GP or a family planning clinic, but many won’t be able to get an appointment in time or may be too embarrassed to try.
From a pharmacist, the pills cost between £25 and £35. But we found a seller in Sri Lanka offering it on eBay for as little as £5.17.
A search of eBay throws up dozens of listings for the morning after pill from different countries. While some say they cannot be shipped to the UK, the majority are available to buyers in Britain. Most offer recognisable brand name pills.
The Mail purchased three single packs of the pill on eBay from sellers in Sri Lanka, Poland and the US. We were not asked any questions and were only required to type in credit card details.
Two packs arrived within two weeks from the US and Poland. They appear to be genuine although we have not had them tested in a lab. The Sri Lankan seller ‘Asianjunction’ is offering the Postinor-2 emergency contraceptive pill for £7.76 each or as part of a ‘Buy 2 Get 1 Free’ deal with free postage and packaging, an average cost per pill of £5.17.
Dr Kate Guthrie, a sexual health specialist from Hull and spokesman for the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, said: ‘You are playing roulette with what you are swallowing. We have concerns about any drugs bought on the internet as you don’t know what it is.’
Norman Wells, of the Family Education Trust charity, said: ‘The easier it becomes to obtain the morning after pill without a proper medical consultation, the greater the risk to vulnerable teenage girls. With no questions asked about previous medical history or previous use of the drug, there is a very real danger that it could be misused or overused. The health risks to women who use the morning after pill repeatedly over a period of time are not known.’
The morning after pill contains powerful hormones that prevent an egg being released or stop it from implanting into the womb if it has already been fertilised.
But it can cause unpleasant side effects including sickness, dizziness and abdominal pain.
In rare cases – if the pill fails – women can suffer a serious complication known as an ectopic pregnancy which can be fatal for her and the unborn child.
Natika Halil, chief executive of the Family Planning Association charity, said: ‘It is very concerning if UK buyers are turning to the internet to buy emergency contraceptive pills from overseas. Even if you could be confident in the pills being safe, of which there are no guarantees, by the time they have arrived you would have passed the window of time in which emergency contraception needs to be used to be effective.’
Under European law, any pharmacist or company wanting to sell medicines online in the UK must carry the EU common logo next to each listing. This is a kitemark to state that the website has been properly regulated and isn’t selling counterfeit drugs. None of the listings in the Mail investigation carry this logo meaning that the sellers are breaking the law.
A spokesman for watchdog the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency said: ‘We take the illegal sale of medicines online very seriously and will investigate any report received that medicines are being offered in circumstances that do not comply with UK requirements.’
The spokesman stressed it was the sellers acting illegally, rather than eBay for listing the products.
An eBay spokesman claimed the morning after pill was being sold to British women by mistake and should only be available in the US where laws are different. ‘We immediately rectified the fact that a small number of products were visible on the UK website by removing these listings,’ the spokesman added.
‘No questions asked’