By Michael Dorausch, D.C.
An internet health care/drug product website known as planetRx.com, which had received many millions in funding, is suffering from a pill that is just too hard to swallow.
A visit to the planetRx.com web site shows us some important dates to remember.
February 12, 2001: no new prescriptions will be excepted
February 26, 2001: existing prescriptions will longer be refilled
March 12, 2001: planetRx.com store will officially be closed
This is a web site that listed in their mission that their goal was to be the “most trusted, most convenient, and most informative health care e-commerce destination on the internet.”
The site was backed by many big players in the internet arena including Yahoo!, IBM, and e-Trade. Popular website IVillage.com also invested in planetRx.com to the tune of some $7.5 million. In June of 1999, drug giant Warner-Lambert (makers of the now FDA pulled drug Rezulin) backed the site with a multimillion dollar sponsorship.
It is hard for me to imagine how a health care information web site funded and sponsored by drug companies could provide health care information to consumers without creating a conflict of interest. Perhaps consumers innately knew this.
A quote from the planetRx.com mission statement reads, “We believe that everyone is entitled to know everything about their own health.” I agree, yet there is a difference in stating that you are entitled to the information as opposed to being a provider of that information.
Part of the planetRx.com mission was products first, information second. Perhaps, information should have been provided first and products second, or even third. The company which went public in late 1999 has seen it’s stock price decline from a nose-bleeding $100+ per share to a trading price today of thirty four cents per share.
While the trademark slogan on the planetRx.com website reads “Life is better on planetRx”, I beg to differ, life is most certainly better on Planet Chiropractic.
Two interesting early articles regarding planetRx.com from CNET News…
CNET: PlanetRx opens online pharmacy
CNET: Drug giant backs PlanetRx site
planetc1.com-news @ 9:16 am | Article ID: 984503792
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