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Save on Prescription Drugs by Buying Through Online Pharmacies

Ross McLaughlin
KIRO 7 EYEWITNESS NEWS CONSUMER INVESTIGATOR

The latest craze is to make your purchase online and have your prescription drugs shipped to you. But beware -- we've put these online pharmacies to the test and made some surprising discoveries.

Here's one example. Ray and Jane Carbaugh pay a fortune for their prescription drugs for a host of ailments -- $1,100 each month. The SeaTac couple says after watching KIRO 7 Eyewitness News, they found a way to save at least a third of the cost. They ordered some prescriptions from RealFast Drugstore in Canada. But we discovered that there are even better deals than at realfastdrugsstore.com.

KIRO 7 tested ten Canadian online pharmacies, including realfastdrugstore.com, doctorsolve.com, and canadameds.com. We also checked ten prescription drugs, like Daypro and Celbrex for arthritis, Tamoxifen to treat breast cancer, and Lipitor for high cholesterol.

We plugged all the prices into a computer and compared them against each other, and against the American online prescription company, drugstore.com. The price differences were astounding.

A three-month supply of Tamoxifen on the U.S Web site drugstore.com is $287. The price at the cheapest Canadian Web site is just $29 (U.S. funds.) That's an 81 percent savings.

Accutane to treat acne costs $789 from the U.S. Web site, but is just $231 in Canada, a 71 percent saving.