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Comment by epochwolf | Hacker News Reader

Nothing surprising in this. People are using an automated online marketplace to sell illegal goods. Online marketplace takes down products when they are reported.

It's a game of whack-a-mole and Amazon is doing the bare minimum. The company has no incentive to do otherwise.

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Ebay actually has automatic flagging to keep illegal products off their site.

I know this because I once tried to sell a pulse oximetry meter there and it got autoflagged and taken down. Apparently you can't sell (some?) medical supplies on ebay even though I bought the pulse ox meter from the store.

until someone dies because of a drug sold through their website and the surviving family members feed the media a horror story with which they can create the black sheep, amazon, which profits from the deaths of its customers

If people don't care about all the doctors currently overprescribing oxy, xanax, etc, seems like they shouldn't care too much about this.

Most of those people are still under a doctor's care, so while they may not need the medication that much and may pay the price later, there is at least some accounting/supervision going on. When/if someone dies in a case of overprescription, there is clearly someone to be held accountable. A possibly overly sensational case of this is Michael Jackson's doctor who was found guilty of manslaughter.

When you self prescribe foreign prescription medication, and die/suffer some massive side effect, there's no real recourse.

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