The Ottawa Citizen recently published an article headlined, “Online pharma spammers capitalize on Canada’s health-care reputation” — pointing out how cyber-criminals, mostly based in Russia, are damaging Canada’s good name by spamming inboxes with sales pitches from so-called “Canadian pharmacies.”

John Praed, a Virginia lawyer investigating online pharmacies, told the newspaper:

Almost every illegal pharmacy that’s out there invokes Canada. This will taint Canada.

Approximately 200 legitimate online pharmacies are based in Canada and licensed by their provincial governments to sell medications internationally. These include the pharmacies in the Canadian Online Pharmacies database.

Unfortunately, the constant flood of spam e-mails is confusing U.S. consumers — and making them afraid of all Canadian pharmacies.

Tim Smith of the Canadian International Pharmacy Association told the Citizen:

It’s our reputation, our very strong reputation that stands to be affected by the rogue operators. We’re committed to safety, and we don’t want anybody around that can tarnish our reputation by some underhanded practice.

Much of the damage can be traced to a single criminal organization in Russia that calls itself “Canadian Pharmacy.” The group, which operates thousands of sites, sends as many as 60 billion spam e-mails per day.

According to Pat Peterson, a security researcher for Cisco Systems:

There’s no doctors, no prescriptions, no consultations, no buildings, but they will ship you medications.

Some rogue pharmacies add metal shavings and other contaminants to the drugs they send out. In 2007, one Canadian woman was killed by pills laced with poisonous metals. The woman’s payments were traced to a Russian bank — but that’s where the investigation stalled.

Be safe in ordering Canadian drugs. Join Canadian Online Pharmacies today.