WARNING! READ THIS!

To anyone contemplating purchasing Efudex from Canada
I purchased the generic form of Efudex, Fluorouracil, from an online Canadian pharmacy. What many people don't know is that the majority of these pharmacies receive their medications from other countries. They will tell you this if you ask, so PLEASE ASK! I thought I was getting a real deal by purchasing a 40 gram tube for $33, which would be $250 in the U.S. (and that's generic!)

My order of 40 grams came in 3 tubes of 15 grams each. When I opened the first tube, it was very runny, with some small clumps of white cream. With each application as I got further down the tube, the cream got drier and drier. Eventually it was too dry to spread, and just ended up in clumps on my face. The cream also appeared curdled, kind of like cottage cheese only smaller curds. The expiration date wasn't until 2010, but I read the box that it came in and it stated it was manufactured in India. It also, like many meds, states that it must be kept in certain temperatures. I went through all three tubes, and they were all the same.

I had an uneasy feeling about this and spoke to a few people who have used Efudex in the past. They all said it should be smooth and creamy throughout. At this point I was already 10 days in, and not wanting to have gone through this for no reason, I decided to bite the bullet and purchase the generic form from my local Walgreens pharmacy (yes, it was actually cheaper there than Wal-Mart!). This cream was totally different than the cream I received from Canada.

Would my reaction had been any different if I never used the generic cream that I got from the Canadian pharmacy? Who knows. But the cream itself definitely wasn't right, and even the Canadian pharmacy offered to send me another tube if I sent this one back. With me in the middle of the treatment, it wasn't an option.

"Drugs from Canada don't always come from Canada. According to President of CanaRX, a Canadian Web site that sells online, 70 percent of drugs sold to Americans from Canada are made elsewhere, so the drug you think you're importing from Canada probably comes from a third world country with less stringent protections than either the US or Canada." READ MORE


"Customs-FDA operation in August 2005 at New York, Miami and Los Angeles airports, showing that a large percentage of drugs purportedly coming from Canadian pharmacies actually originated in India, Israel, Costa Rica and other countries, and many were counterfeit.

...Canadian Internet pharmacies may be run by shady dealers in countries such as India, China and North Korea." READ MORE