Viagra, Xanax and other prescription drugs dispensed by some Florentine pharmacies even without a prescription. As shows the service of Striscia la Notizia. Carmagnini (Ord. of pharmacists): “It is not the practice. If someone is wrong, he will be punished." Mnlf: "A damage to all honest pharmacists".
04 JAN – Pharmacies at the center of the cyclone. This time for a Striscia la Notizia report aired on January 2, showing the pharmacists of some shops in Florence delivering prescription drugs such as Viagra and Xanax even to customers who did not have a prescription. An exception, certainly, but one that can prove dangerous. For this reason, the Order of Medicines of Florence immediately announced that "it will reserve the right to formally acquire the documentation for its careful evaluation, also for the purposes of any disciplinary measures".
"However, it is important that citizens know that this is not the practice, that the behavior of pharmacists is rigorous and that the pharmacy is a safe place for dispensing medicines", wanted to underline the president of the Order, Andrea Carmagnini, who we reached by phone. And it is precisely for this reason that Carmagnini announces that where incorrect behavior should be verified, the Order will intervene with disciplinary measures: "Whoever makes a mistake will be punished".
For Carmagnini attention should also be paid "to the moment of suffering of the category" which "unfortunately, in some cases, albeit rare, leads to a flattening of the profession and to a purely economic vision which can also lead to behaviors such as those recorded by the Strip the News”. However, the economic difficulties, for the president of the Order of Pharmacists of Florence, must not be a justification: "Pharmacists must never lose sight of their mission and their ethical values".
For the Movimento Nazionale Liberi Farmacisti (Mnlf), however, the one recorded by Striscia la Notizia is by no means a rare case. And honest pharmacy owners are also subjected to them who, "if they try to oppose this 'bad habit' they suffer unfair competition from the other
